Miriam Battista

Biography

Miriam Battista was born in New York City on July 14, 1912, the youngest of three children, to immigrant parents from Italy. Her father was Raphael Battista from Oliveto Citra, Italy, and her mother was Cleonice (Clara) Rufolo. Clara was related to many old Neapolitan families of noble blood, and Raphael's grandfather was an archbishop. Miriam captivated audiences at age 4 when she made her stage debut in 1916 with legendary stage star Maude Adams (1872-1953) in "A Kiss for Cinderella." She was first seen on film in Blazing Love (1916) starring Virginia Pearson. Her eyes lit up the screen, though she received no credit for being in the film. Several years of stage work followed, including roles in "Daddy Long Legs" with Ruth Chatterton (1917), the Henrik Ibsen classic "A Doll's House" with Alla Nazimova (1918), "Freedom" with her eldest brother William (1918), "Red Dawn" (1919), and "Daddies" with Jeanne Eagles (1919). In 1919, she returned to film in Nazimova's Eye for Eye (1918), playing Hassouna's little sister. The following year, she played Minnie Ginsberg as a child in Humoresque (1920), the first film to receive the Photoplay Magazine Medal of Honor (the first significant annual film award); in Miriam's most memorable scene, she sobs over her dead kitten and tries to bring it back to life by warming it against her body. Roles in many more films followed, including At the Stage Door (1921) with Billie Dove, Smilin' Through (1922) with Norma Talmadge, Boomerang Bill (1922) with Lionel Barrymore in which she played a Chinese girl, and The Man Who Played God (1922) with George Arliss. Her mother, who had managed her career, died in 1924, and Miriam didn't return to the stage until 1930, at the age of 18. She played the ingénue lead in "The Honor Code" (1931) and after joining Florenz Ziegfield Jr.'s "Follies" as a dancer, she landed a singing role in "Hot Cha!" (1932) with Bert Lahr. She continued performing on the stage, including starring with Humphrey Bogart in "Our Wife" (1933), and making films, mostly in Italian. In 1934, she married dancer Paul Pierce; the marriage lasted only one year. In 1938, she married Russell Maloney, an author who worked as a staff writer on the New Yorker. Their only child, Amelia, was born in 1945. In 1948, they collaborated on an ill-fated musical titled "Sleepy Hollow" that lasted only 12 performances. Russell died a few months later, and in 1949 Miriam married Lloyd Rosamond, a radio and TV producer who had been a friend since childhood. Lloyd died in 1964. Miriam died on December 22, 1980, of complications from emphysema.