Myrtle Tannehill Nichols (May 18, 1886 – July 25, 1977) was an American actress on stage and in Silent film.
Early life
Myrtle Tannehill was born into a theatrical family.
[ "Members of Noted Stage Families Playing Here" Los Angeles Times (March 10, 1950): 32. via Newspapers.com] Her mother was actress Maude Giroux, and her father was actor and playwright Frank Tannehill Jr. Her grandparents, Frank Tannehill Sr. and Susan (Nellie) McMurray Tannehill, were also in the theatre. Her much younger half-sister, Frances Tannehill Clark, also became an actress.
[ "Myrtle, the Youngest of Old Stage Family" Chicago Tribune (January 11, 1911): 15. via Newspapers.com]
Career
Myrtle Tannehill's appearances on Broadway were mostly in comedies, and included roles in the plays
Just out of College (1905),
Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch (1906),
Electricity (1910),
Broadway Jones (1912-1913),
Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford (1917),
[ "New Plays" Billboard (May 19, 1917): 78.] Dear Brutus (1918-1919),
The Bonehead (1920),
The Broken Wing (1920-1921),
[ "Thrills and Sentiment in New Broadway Hits" Theatre Magazine (February 1921): 108.] The Dream Maker (1921-1922),
Dodsworth (1934),
The Philadelphia Story (1939-1940), and
Pygmalion (1945-1946).
[George J. Nathan, The Theatre Book of the Year, 1945-1946 (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press 1974): 242. ] In London she appeared in
Sealed Orders (1913) and
The Show Off (1924).
[J. P. Wearing, The London Stage, 1920-1929: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel (Rowman & Littlefield 2014): 325. ] In 1916 she and her husband Hale Hamilton toured Australia with their stock company.
[ Myrtle Tannehill record, AusStage.] In 1925 she was cast in
Appearances, a play by Garland Anderson.
[ "Bellhop's Play" Daily News (September 9, 1925): 58. via Newspapers.com]
Tannehill appeared in three silent films: Ethel's Luncheon (1909), When the Mind Sleeps (1915), and The Barnstormers (1915).[Hanford C. Judson, "The Barnstormers" Moving Picture World (August 21, 1915): 1322.] She also made two late-career appearances on television, in "Murder by Choice", for Colgate Theatre (1949), and in "Follow Me" for Lights Out (1951).[William Hawes, Live Television Drama, 1946-1951 (McFarland 2001): 248, 312. ]
Personal life
Myrtle Tannehill married actor
Hale Hamilton in 1912, a month after he divorced actress
Jane Oaker. Tannehill and Hamilton divorced in 1920, before he married his third wife, actress Grace La Rue.
[ "Did Grace La Rue 'Vamp' Mrs. Hale Hamilton's Husband?" Sandusky Register (March 28, 1920): 23. via Newspapers.com] Tannehill sued La Rue for alienation of affections.
[ "Grace La Rue Wed to Hale Hamilton" New York Times (June 1, 1920): 15.] In 1925, Tannehill married stock broker Charles G. Nichols.
[ "Myrtle Tannehill Married Secretly" Daily News (June 27, 1925): 51. via Newspapers.com] She retired from the stage after her second marriage, but returned to acting after the stock market crash of 1929.
[I. C. Brenner, "Memory Lane" Salt Lake Tribune (July 31, 1936): 16. via Newspapers.com] Myrtle Tannehill Nichols died in 1977, aged 91 years.
[ "Deaths" New York Times (July 26, 1977): 32.]
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