Julie Cruze
actress, soundtrack
- Born:
- 1913-10-24, New York City, New York, USA
- Died:
- 1946-07-27, San Diego, California, USA
- Professions:
- actress, soundtrack
Biography
Julie Cruze was born into flickering light: her cradle was a film set, her lullabies the soft clack of a Thanhouser camera. While still in diapers she made her screen debut opposite her mother, silent-star Marguerite Snow, turning infancy itself into a cameo. Years later the spotlight turned harsh. In 1934 her father, pioneering director James Cruze, hauled his twenty-three-year-old daughter into court, demanding that $150,000 worth of deeds he had once smilingly signed over be declared null and void. He painted her as naïve, a lamb among wolves, and asked a judge to leash her future to a guardian’s purse strings. Julie answered with steel: the property, she said, had been refuge, a bulwark against the creditors already circling her father’s collapsing empire. When the gavel fell, the wolves were sent packing and the lamb walked out a lioness, deeds—and dignity—intact.
