Eric Linden

Biography

Fair-haired, youthfully handsome Swedish-American actor Eric Linden, who enjoyed pre-Code, Depression-era Hollywood stardom in boyish leads, was discovered for films by director Wesley Ruggles when Ruggles cast the New York-based actor in a lead role in the film Are These Our Children (1931). Born in New York City, his Swedish father, Philip Linden, was an actor with Stockholm's Royal Theatre who migrated to America, then later abandoned his wife and five children when Eric was still young. His mother made ends meet by working at a church parish. He attended the Paul Hoffman Jr. School where he made appearances in the school's plays. A one-time usher at the Riverside, Riviera and Roxy Theatres in New York, he took English and literature classes at Columbia University at one point. Eric was invited into the Theatre Guild membership and appeared in such productions as "Marco's Millions" and "Strange Interlude". He also began appearing on Broadway and performed in repertory around the East coast. Earning a RKO Hollywood contract at the onset of talking films, he made an auspicious debut as the self-important, trouble-making Eddie Brand in Are These Our Children (1931). From there he appeared opposite Hollywood's finest leading ladies in quality fare: Helen Twelvetrees in Young Bride (1932), Joan Blondell in Big City Blues (1932), and Loretta Young in Life Begins (1932), to name a few. Initially promoted by RKO as "The Boy Sensation of the Theatre Guild," he later was pegged as Hollywood's tragic boy actor on the screen. Other fine roles came with The Crowd Roars (1932) as James Cagney's hero-worshiping brother, a collegiate lead in The Age of Consent (1932), the callow son of Lionel Barrymore in Sweepings (1933), the young male lead in The Past of Mary Holmes (1933), the dominated son of Laura Hope Crews in The Silver Cord (1933) and then performed one of his last good film roles in Ah Wilderness! (1935) opposite Barrymore again, Wallace Beery and Mickey Rooney. One of his biggest disappointments at the time was losing the part of Laurie in the classic Alcott tearjerker Little Women (1933). Good parts declined into the late 1930s and, following diminishing work in such films as Robin Hood of El Dorado (1936), The Good Old Soak (1937), Here's Flash Casey (1938) (title role), Everything's on Ice (1939) and, his last, Criminals Within (1941), Eric left films for good. During this time, he also had a very small role as a Civil War amputee in Gone with the Wind (1939). Linden fared better under the theatre lights in later years with prime roles as Joe Bonaparte in "Golden Boy" and in "Another Language," "The Philadelphia Story" (with Diana Barrymore), "Mr. and Mrs. North" and "My Sister Eileen". Following a stint with the Armed Forces during WWII, he again returned to the stage but his career was in serious decline. Eric married late in life in 1955, age 46; he and wife Jo, an artist, settled in Laguna Beach, California and had three children: Karen, David and Andrea. They divorced in 1977. In later years, he worked for the County of Orange in California. He died on July 14, 1994, at age 84.