Evelyn Hoey

Biography

Evelyn Hoey started her career on stage at age 10 in Minneapolis, MN. The height of her prominence on the stage was achieved when she appeared with Leon Errol in "Yours Truly" in 1928. She went to London to appear in "Good News" and in 1929 was singing Cole Porter's songs in a Paris nightclub. It was there E. Ray Goetz heard her and signed her as the torch singer for "Fifty-Million Frenchmen" in 1929. She appeared in the "Vanderbuilt Revue," "Walk a Little Faster," and in films in The 20th Amendment (1930). A diminutive, blue-eyed actress with honey-colored hair, she was known for her musical comedy singing and a drawling lyrical "blues" voice that enraptured audiences in New York, Paris and London. She was found dead with a .45-cal. bullet wound through her head on September 12, 1935, in the home of Henry H. Rogers III, grandson of the co-founder of the Standard Oil Co. Also present was cinematographer William J. Kelly. Rogers had co-produced with the explorer Henry McCracken the film "An Old Fashioned Garden," a prim comedy about life among the nudists. It passed the censors, but it may never have been released.