Cora Sue Collins

Biography

Cora Sue Collins was born in Beckley, West Virginia. A chubby-cheeked, curly-haired child actress, she was nudged (or, rather, propelled) into show business by her ambitious mother. Though she was heavily in demand during the 1930s, Cora never posed a serious threat as a rival to Shirley Temple. Much of her popularity stemmed from an uncanny histrionic talent in being able to cry on demand. Cora Sue appeared in her first film, The Strange Case of Clara Deane (1932), at the age of five. Clark Gable's first wife, Josephine Dillon, was her voice coach. Cora enjoyed a succession of small acting parts throughout the first half of the decade, by 1934 earning a respectable $250 a week. That year, she appeared in eleven films. Hand-picked by Greta Garbo to play the star's younger self in Queen Christina (1933), she developed a long-standing friendship with Garbo, as well as with Lucille Ball and other established stars, later saying "I was never intimidated by them because they were all actors, just like me". One of Cora's notable performances was as the illegitimate daughter of Colleen Moore in The Scarlet Letter (1934). New York Times reviewer Andre Sennwald found her performance in the crime drama Evelyn Prentice (1934) 'agreeable', "in spite of the pretty-pretty lines with which the script writers have loaded her." She also commanded a rare leading role as the juvenile delinquent daughter of a court judge in Youth on Trial (1945). However, soon after, she left showbiz at the tender age of 18 in the wake of a small supporting part in Week-End at the Waldorf (1945). The reason for her premature retirement from the screen came to light decades later, elicited through interviews with the former child star. The casting couch had always been an open secret in 1930s and 40s Hollywood. Dare to refuse and the message might well be that classic line "you'll never work in this town again!" In 2020, Cora Sue revealed that she had rebuffed the sexual advances of a screenwriter (33 years her senior) whom she had previously regarded as both friend and mentor. She later confronted MGM studio boss Louis B. Mayer, whose response was "nonchalant and dismissive". So she quit. In 2014, Cora reflected "To this day, I do think it's the best single decision of my life. I could have still been working in films or on the Broadway stage, but I learned the luxury of anonymity at a very early age; it's fun to be a housewife from Phoenix, I like it." Post-Hollywood, Cora studied architecture and then lived the life of a socialite in Mexico for some years, hosting lavish parties. She was married three times, respectively to Ivan Stauffer, wealthy owner of a ranch in Nevada, to a James Morgan Cox and to a Phoenix theatre owner named Harry Nace.