Product Code Database
Ellen Hall (April 18, 1923 – March 24, 1999) was an American actress and showgirl born in Los Angeles. She was introduced to the film industry when her mother, Ella Hall, got an uncredited cameo as a nurse in the 1930 Universal production All Quiet on the Western Front.
In 1943, Hall joined the Goldwyn Girls, a musical stock company of Chorus line formed by Samuel Goldwyn, based on the Ziegfeld Girls. In 1944, 20th Century Fox invited her to join the newly formed Diamond Horseshoe Girls.
During her career, she acted in Westerns, a popular genre in the 1940s, as well as family Comedy and Musical film. In 1951, she appeared in the television series The Cisco Kid. She performed her last acting role in 1952, when she was .
Hall was introduced to Lee Langer, a Marine fighter pilot, in early 1944. The couple married on December 3, 1944, in North Hollywood, Los Angeles. Langer became a restaurateur and managed the upscale Encore restaurant on La Cienega Boulevard. Later in life, the couple retired in Rosarito Beach, Mexico.
Ellen Hall died on March 24, 1999, in Bellevue, Nebraska.
In 1924, Ellen's mother filed for divorce, though the couple reconciled in late 1925. In March 1926, a truck fatally struck the five-year-old Alfred while the kids were crossing a busy street in Hollywood. The Johnson couple subsequently had another child, Diana Marie, on October 27, 1929.
Hall's parents eventually divorced in 1930, and Ella and her three children found residence with Ella's mother, who lived in North Hollywood. Ella got work at the upscale department store I. Magnin. In 1932, Emory Johnson declared bankruptcy to reduce his financial obligations towards Ella and their children.
According to another newspaper account, Hall made her first appearance in front of the cameras at age nine, with an uncredited role in Mary Pickford's Secrets, released in 1933.
At 21, in 1943, Hall became one of the thirty-four Goldwyn Girls, created by Sam Goldwyn. This led her to appear in the 1944 Samuel Goldwyn Productions musical Up in Arms. Her Press kit from the shoot states, Description of Ella Hall from her Commons Photograph In 1944, she appeared in Here Come the Waves; in 1945, Wonder Man; and in 1946, Cinderella Jones. This role would be her last in a musical. In late 1944, Hall was selected by 20th-Century Fox producer William Perlberg to join the fourteen Diamond Horseshoe Girls.
Following her 1944 marriage, Hall began accepting fewer film roles. In 1946, she acted in Thunder Town, and in 1949, she accepted her final role in a Hollywood Western, in Lawless Code.
The couple married on December 3, 1944, in North Hollywood. Mildred Kornman was Hall's Bridesmaid. Hall's mother, Ella, was friends with Mary Pickford, who arranged for the wedding reception to be held at the Hollywood home of her friend Frances Marion. Along with Hall's mother, Pickford was in the receiving line. A newspaper article describing the wedding referenced Hall's father as "the late Emory Johnson"; father and daughter were estranged at the time.
After the wedding, Langer remained on active duty. The couple moved into a three-bedroom Spanish stucco-style home in Los Angeles. The military discharged Langer from active service on February 21, 1946. A son was born to the couple on March 4, 1949.
Langer became a restaurateur and managed the upscale Encore restaurant on La Cienega Boulevard. In 1951, he also became a major in the Marine Reserves.
Although the timeframe is unknown, Lee and Ellen Langer chose to retire in Rosarito Beach, Mexico. They would remain married until Langer's death, in 1995.
Her ashes were transported west to Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, where she was interred alongside her mother, Ella Hall, and younger sister, Diana Marie Moxley.
|
|
