Juanita Quigley

Biography

Juanita Quigley was born on June 24, 1931 in Los Angeles. At age 3, she began appearing in films in small roles as an extra child; these parts were often uncredited, but when Quigley did receive credit, it was under the name "Baby Jane." Her career changed when she played Baby Jessie Pullman in Imitation of Life (1934). The role made her famous, and in her very next film, The Man Who Reclaimed His Head (1934), she was given a large part and received fourth billing (still credited as "Baby Jane"). Over the next several years she had starring roles in many popular films. Around 1935, she dropped the pseudonym "Baby Jane" and began being credited by her real name. By 1938, she was one of the most famous child stars in Hollywood. But Quigley's career slowed down in the early 1940s; she was given smaller roles and appeared only as an extra in The Blue Bird (1940), Bachelor Daddy (1941), and Paper Bullets (1941). In 1943, she acted alongside her older sister, Rita Quigley, in Whispering Footsteps (1943). She made her last notable performances in 1944, in The Lady and the Monster (1944) and the classic film National Velvet (1944), in which she played the sister of Elizabeth Taylor and Angela Lansbury. Quigley left Hollywood in 1951. As an adult, she became a nun in the order of the Daughters of Mary and Joseph, but after several years in her convent, she decided that she had made a mistake, left the vocation, and married. In 1983, Quigley made her last film appearance as an uncredited extra in Porky's II: The Next Day (1983).