Confusion shrouds the tragically short life of Betty Cornelia Mumford (19??-44). Her year of birth has been stated as 1908, 1912 and 1914. Many of her screen appearances (including credited roles) were under the name Betty Lorraine; she seems to have used the name Lorraine Marshall when she felt like it. Let’s just call her Lorraine.
Lorraine was a child dancer who made her screen debut playing Miss Belgium in Fox’s None But the Brave (1928), aged anywhere between 14 and 20. In the same year she had a credit as ‘Slinky’ in Red Wine (1928), a Conrad Nagel romantic comedy.
By 1931, Lorraine was an uncredited Goldwyn Girl in Palmy Days. In 1933, she was uncredited in MGM’s Dancing Lady, and also in Gold Diggers of 1933 and Footlight Parade, where she stands out in the ‘Shanghai Lil’ number. But, in the same year, she had a credited role in Maurice Chevalier’s A Bedtime Story.
Parts had pretty much dried up by 1937, so she worked as a band singer, and apparently appeared in one Broadway musical. But by 1943, she was playing a harem girl in Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.
Judged to have been clinically depressed, Lorraine took her own life in 1944. A short life, but she had been married four times.
