Dorothy Dell

Dorothy Dell was interred in Metairie Cemetery, in New Orleans, Louisana. Eagels' performance in The Letter inspired many actors new to the medium of talking pictures, including Bette Davis who repeated the role in a 1940 remake of the film. Dell was killed instantly and Wagner died several hours later. The Oscar went to Mary Pickford for the film Coquette. On their way to Pasadena their vehicle was involved in an accident.
Eagels was posthumously nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in the The Letter. In 1934 she attended a party in Altadena, California with Dr Carl Wagner, to whom she was reported to have become engaged. She was survived by her mother, Julia Eagles, and several brothers and sisters.

Paramount scheduled her to play opposite Gary Cooper and Shirley Temple in Now and Forever in what was to have been her first major starring role as a romantic lead. In Kansas City, thousands of mourning fans were at the train station when her coffin was returned for interment in the local Calvary Cemetery. Her next film Shoot the Works led to comparisons with Mae West, and her rendition of the ballad "With My Eyes Wide Open, I'm Dreaming" in the film became a hit record. Three medical practitioners gave three different causes for her death, all of which pointed to alcohol and drug abuse. Her most important and substantial role followed in the Shirley Temple film Little Miss Marker.
Just before she was to return to the Broadway stage, Jeanne Eagels died suddenly at a hospital in New York City on October 3, 1929. The film was a success and the reviews for Dell were favourable; Paramount began to consider her as a potential star. Her performance in The Letter garnered high praise from critics.

She won her first film role over such established contenders as Mae Clarke and Isabel Jewell and made her debut in Wharf Angel (1934).
The ban did not stop Eagels from working in film, and she made two "talkies" for Paramount Pictures, including The Letter and Jealousy (both released in 1929). She moved to Hollywood in 1933 and was signed to a contract by Paramount Studios. In 1928, after failing to appear for a performance in Milwaukee, Eagels was banned by Actors Equity from appearing on stage for 18 months. During this time she was closely associated with Russ Colombo and her celebrity status was elevated by the media attention she received while denying rumours of an impending marriage. She then went on tour with Her Cardboard Lover for several months. In 1931 she moved to New York to appear on Broadway in the Ziegfeld Follies, and followed this success with her role in the production of Tattle Tales in 1933. She appeared opposite John Gilbert in Man, Woman and Sin, which was directed by Monta Bell and made at MGM studios in California.

With this success she established a successful vaudeville act. This play was a modest success, and after a season on Broadway, she took a break to make a movie. She began entering and winning beauty pageants and at the age of fifteen won the title of "Miss New Orleans". After much speculation about her next play, she chose a comedy Her Cardboard Lover (1927) in which she appeared on stage with Leslie Howard. Born Dorothy Dell Goff in Hattiesburg, Mississippi to entertainers, she spent much of her childhood in New Orleans, Louisiana.
For her next role, Eagels was offered the part of Roxie Hart in the play Chicago, but walked out of this role during rehearsals, possibly due to conflicts with the director. Dorothy Dell (January 30, 1915 – June 8, 1934) was an American film actress. They had no children together.

Lamour also won the title of "Miss New Orleans" in 1931, succeeding her friend Dell who had won the title the previous year. The marriage was a stormy one and they divorced in 1928. Dorothy Lamour, a childhood friend of Dell, credited Dell as the person responsible for the beginning of her own film career.
During this period she married 'Ted' Edward Harris Coy (1925), a former Yale University football star. Her final role in "Now and Forever" was taken by Carole Lombard, and provided Lombard with one of her earliest significant successes. She went on tour with Rain for two more seasons, and returned to Broadway to give a farewell performance in 1926. The house was packed nearly every night for two years.

Critics raved about her tense, smoldering, and vivid performance. She played the character of Sadie Thompson, a free-wheeling and free-loving spirit who confronts a fire-and-brimstone preacher on a South Pacific island. She appeared in several other Broadway shows once she returned, but in 1922 she made her first appearance as a star in a bone fide hit- Rain. She had to quit this show due to illness (probably sinusitis) and she subsequently travelled to Europe.

In 1918 she appeared in Daddies, a David Belasco production, and won even more notice. Eagels eventually won recognition and kudos playing opposite the stage actor George Arliss in three successive plays. In 1916 and 1917 she made three films for Thanhouser Film Corporation. Her acting career blossomed, and in 1914 she appeared in her first motion picture role.

Although she struggled for recognition as a dramatic actress, her beauty, talent and luck led to her getting bigger parts in better shows. She changed the spelling of her surname to "Eagels", allegedly because this spelling looked better in lights. At one point her acting coach was Beverly Sitgreaves, who had once shared the stage with the great French actress Sarah Bernhardt. She started out as a chorus girl and this led to appearances in the chorus of the Ziegfeld Follies (i.e., as a Ziegfeld Girl).

In or around 1911, she came to New York City and had to start at the bottom again. At first she was a dancer, but in time she went on to play the leading lady in several popular comedies and dramas put on by the Dubinskys. Her ambitions were such that she left Kansas City around the age of 12 and toured the Midwest with the Dubinsky Brothers' traveling theater show. It was there that she began her acting career, appearing in a variety of small venues at a very young age.

Born Amelia Jeannine Eagles in Kansas City, Missouri. Jeanne Eagels (June 26, 1890 – October 3, 1929) was an actress on Broadway and in several motion pictures. Jeanne Eagles page (http://www.jeanneeagels.com).