Sheila Terry

Biography

Sheila Terry was born Kathleen Eleanor Mulhern on March 5, 1910 in Warroad, Minnesota. Despite her Irish surname, one of her ancestors was John Wycliffe, who had translated the Bible into English. Kathleen dreamed of being an actress from a very young age. When she was a teenager, she studied dramatics at the Dickson Kenwin Academy of Dramatic Art in Toronto. She began her career acting in stock companies. Unfortunately, her wealthy uncle wanted her to become a teacher instead of an actress. She returned to Minnesota and taught school for a brief time so she could claim her inheritance. On August 16, 1928, she married Laurence Clark, a banker. Then she moved to New York City and was cast in the play The Little Racketeer. A talent scout saw her in the play, and she was signed by Warner Brothers. In 1932, she made her film debut in the comedy Week-End Marriage (1932). She had small roles in more than a dozen films including Scarlet Dawn (1932) (starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Nancy Carroll), Madame Butterfly (1932) (starring Cary Grant and Sylvia Sidney), and Convention City (1933) (starring Joan Blondell, Adolphe Menjou, and Mary Astor). The blue-eyed blonde was John Wayne's leading lady in the westerns Haunted Gold (1932), The Lawless Frontier (1934), and 'Neath the Arizona Skies (1934). Her marriage to Laurence Clark ended in 1934. She claimed he often criticized her and said she was a "rotten singer". She married William McGee, a San Francisco millionaire, in October 1937, but that union was short-lived. Unhappy with the roles she was getting, she decided to quit acting. Her final film was the drama I Demand Payment (1938). Then she moved back to New York City and started a new career as a press agent. She had brief romances with actor John Warburton and producer Tay Garnett. In a 1948 interview she said she wanted to start acting again. As she got older she suffered financial problems and depression. On January 19, 1957, she committed suicide by taking an overdose of pills. She was only 49. Impoverished, she was buried at Potter's Field in New York City.