Rosina Lawrence

Biography

This gorgeous green-eyed blonde was born in Canada to British parents and spent her early childhood attending schools in Canada, England, Boston and Los Angeles (where her father worked as a stage carpenter and set designer). She studied ballet for four years and tap dancing for another at the Maurice Kussell Studio, took singing lessons and learned acting under the tutelage of French-Canadian thespian Joseph De Grasse. She performed in school plays during holidays and made her motion picture debut at the age of ten in A Lady of Quality (1924). At thirteen, Rosina appeared in Cecil B. DeMille's The Angel of Broadway (1927) in which she was also used as a hand double for the star Leatrice Joy. For the next seven years she commuted between vaudeville and film work and earned extra dollars as a Hollywood fashion model. She doubled for Sally Eilers (whom she resembled in looks) in both Dance Team (1932) and Disorderly Conduct (1932) but her roles had up to this point amounted to little more than bit parts and walk-ons. A couple of leads eventually came her way, both in second feature mysteries: Welcome Home (1935), opposite James Dunn and Charlie Chan's Secret (1935), with Warner Oland as the screen's first incarnation of the famous detective. Rosina also had two decent production numbers in MGM's marathon biopic The Great Ziegfeld (1936) (her character, Sally Manners, was based on the stage star Marilyn Miller), but those scenes ended up on the cutting room floor. Her career was somewhat revived after she was signed by Hal Roach and found a little niche as the school teacher in the "Our Gang" comedy shorts. She also starred several times in slapstick farce as the wife of Charley Chase and with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in Way Out West (1937) (allegedly the duo's personal favorite). Rosina left the acting profession upon her marriage to the Brooklyn lawyer Juvenal Marchisio, a union which produced three children. Marchisio died in 1973 and Rosina didn't remarry until 1987. Her second husband was actor, academic and Laurel & Hardy biographer John McCabe.