Cecilia Parker

Biography

Canadian-born Cecilia Parker, daughter of a British army officer, moved with her family to Hollywood when she was a child. After graduation from high school she got a job as an extra. She did extra work for about a year before she was noticed by Fox executives, who signed her to a contract in 1931. Her career went along steadily if not spectacularly until 1937, when she was signed by MGM to play the older sister of Mickey Rooney in the "Andy Hardy" series. Although she had worked in everything from westerns to jungle serials, it's this part that people remember her for. She must have given MGM some trouble at one point, because in 1941 she was "loaned" (exiled is probably a better word) to ultra-low-rent studio PRC for one picture, a fate that usually befell actors who displeased the higher-ups at the studios. All was apparently forgiven, though, as she made five more pictures at MGM before she retired in 1942. She returned in 1958 for one final Andy Hardy film, but then went back to the real estate business she and her husband operated in Ventura, California, where she died in 1993.