Lucile Ruth Browne (1907-76) had been working with a theatre company in Chicago when the Fox Film Corporation gave her the female lead in the western The Last of the Duanes (1930).
Browne’s subsequent career was a combination of featured roles in ‘B’ westerns and uncredited appearances in ‘A’ pictures. For example, in 1935 she played a bit as a nurse in Magnificent Obsession, and also starred opposite Gene Autry in Republic’s singing cowboy picture Tumbling Tumbleweeds.
A rare exception to this rule was a featured role in MGM/Hal Roach’s The Devil’s Brother. Her only other appearance in an MGM musical was as a chorus girl in Sweethearts.
Browne effectively retired in 1938 to raise a family, making only occasional screen appearances thereafter, ending with the Margaret Sullavan weepie No Sad Songs for Me (1950).
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