Edith Marilyn Fellows (1923-2011) was five when she made her first film, a Charley Chase comedy short. Over the next 65 years she notched up a modest 80-odd appearances on the big screen and television. She also began working on the stage in the 1940s, appearing a number of times on Broadway.
Fellows had already made twenty films by the time she was 13, most memorably alongside W C Fields in Mrs Wiggins of the Cabbage Patch (1935). Later, she was Polly Pepper in Columbia’s Five Little Peppers series. She managed to continue working after her years as a child actor were over, but mostly for Poverty Row studios.
Financial exploitation by her family, prescription drugs and alcohol all interfered with her career, as did serious stage fright. But she soldiered on, eventually playing herself in Dreams Deferred, a play based on her life and experiences. This led to more television work, including the role of Edith Head in a biopic about Grace Kelly.
Fellows had made appearances with Hal Roach’s ‘Little Rascals’, and also used her in the musical The Devil’s Brother.
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