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Monetta Eloyse Darnell, better known as Linda
Darnell (born October 16, 1923; died April 10,
1965), was a United States|American film
actor|actress.

Born in Dallas, Texas and one of five children,
Darnell was a model (person)|model by the age of
11 and was acting in theater by the age of 13. 
She was chosen by a talent scout to go to
Hollywood but was sent home to Dallas when they
discovered she had lied about her age. 

By 1939 she had returned to Hollywood and
immediately began to secure good roles, appearing
in such films as Blood and Sand, Hangover Square 
and My Darling Clementine.   In 1947 in film|1947
she won the starring role in the highly
anticipated Forever Amber.  Publicity at the time
suggested this would be the next Gone With The
Wind, and the search for Amber was deliberately
modelled on the extensive process that led to the
casting of Scarlett O'Hara, but the film did not
live up to its hype.

Darnell played two roles that earned her respect
as an actress: as Daphne De Carter in the Preston
Sturges comedy Unfaithfully Yours, opposite Rex
Harrison, and as one of the three wives in A
Letter to Three Wives. Darnell's hard-edged
performance in the latter won her the best reviews
of her career. She was widely tipped to win an
Academy Award nomination for this part, but, when
this did not happen, her career began to diminish
and her film appearances were sporadic thereafter.

Darnell had three failed marriages, to cameraman
J. Peverell Marley (1943-1952), brewery heir
Philip Leibmann (1954-55), and pilot Merle Roy
Robertson (1957-1963).  Apparently unable to
conceive, Darnell and Leibmann adopted a daughter,
Charlotte "Lola" Marley, who now owns The Smoking
Lamp tobacco shop in Charleston, South Carolina.
To the detriment of her family life and career,
for many years Darnell drank alcohol and ate to
excess.

She died from burns received in a house fire in
Glenview, Illinois, while living with friends. 
Her film, Star Dust, was playing on television the
night of the fire and Darnell fell asleep with a
lit cigarette while watching it.  She reportedly
awoke and tried to save her friend's child in the
house -- the young girl had already escaped -- and
instead was burned over 80 percent of her body.
She died the next day. Her ashes are interred at
the Union Hill Cemetery, Chester County,
Pennsylvania, in the family plot of her daughter's
husband. 

She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 
1631 Vine St.

==Filmography==
*Hotel for Women (1939)
*Day-Time Wife (1939)
*Star Dust (1940)
*Brigham Young - Frontiersman (1940)
*The Mark of Zorro (1940)
*Chad Hanna (1940)
*Meet the Stars: Hollywood Meets the Navy (1941)
(short subject)
*Blood and Sand (1941)
*Rise and Shine (1941)
*The Loves of Edgar Allan Poe (1942)
*City Without Men (1943)
*Show Business at War (1943) (short subject)
*The Song of Bernadette (1943)
*Buffalo Bill (1944)
*It Happened Tomorrow (1944)
*Summer Storm (1944)
*Sweet and Low-Down (1944)
*Hangover Square (1945)
*The All-Star Bond Rally (1945) (short subject)
*The Great John L. (1945)
*Fallen Angel (1945 movie)|Fallen Angel (1945)
*Anna and the King of Siam (1946)
*Centennial Summer (1946)
*My Darling Clementine (1946)
*Forever Amber (1947)
*The Walls of Jericho (1948)
*Unfaithfully Yours (1948)
*A Letter to Three Wives (1949)
*Slattery's Hurricane (1949)
*Everybody Does It (1949)
*No Way Out (1950 film)|No Way Out (1950)
*Two Flags West (1950)
*The 13th Letter (1951)
*The Guy Who Came Back (1951)
*The Lady Pays Off (1951)
*Island of Desire (1952)
*Night Without Sleep (1952)
*Blackbeard, the Pirate (1952)
*Angels of Darkness (1953)
*Second Chance (1953)
*This Is My Love (1954)
*The Last Five Minutes (1954)
*Dakota Incident (1956)
*Homeward Borne (1957)
*Zero Hour! (1957)
*The Castilian (1963)
*Black Spurs (1965)

==External links==
* http://www.classicactresses.com/linda.html Linda
Darnell at Classic Actresses
* http://www.lindadarnell.com Linda Darnell .com
*imdb name|id=0001105|name=Linda Darnell
*
http://www.glamourgirlsofthesilverscreen.com/show/
59/Linda++Darnell/ Glamour Girls of the Silver
Screen: Linda Darnell