Brenda Marshall

Ardis Ankerson, born on the Philippine island of Negros in the 1920s, was one of two siblings. Her father, Otto Peter Ankerson, served as an overseer of a large sugar plantation. After her mother's death in 1925, Ardis and her sister were sent to San Antonio to continue their education. In 1934, she was voted Freshman Class Beauty at Texas State College, where she participated in amateur dramatics and focused on improving her diction and improvisation. By this time, she had made it clear she wanted to become a professional actress. After graduating, she moved to New York, where she studied drama under actor Richard Gaines, whom she married in 1936. Gaines helped her secure acting roles in stock companies under the Federal Theatre Project, a New Deal initiative supported by the Works Progress Administration. While in New York, Ardis auditioned for Paramount, but studio executives declined to sign her due to what they considered excessive salary demands. Warner Brothers later conducted a screen test and agreed to sign her. After a studio-mandated name change, she became Brenda Marshall. In Hollywood, she insisted on being called by her given name, Ardis, with the addition of her married name, Gaines. Brenda made a strong impression in her fourth film for Warners, playing Doña Maria in *The Sea Hawk* (1940), a swashbuckling adventure starring Errol Flynn. This role should have established her as a box office draw, but she was subsequently cast in routine films such as *East of the River* (1940), *South of Suez* (1940), and *Singapore Woman* (1941). She appeared in two more A-grade productions, but played a supporting role to James Cagney in *Captains of the Clouds* (1942) and was overshadowed by Joan Fontaine and Alexis Smith in *The Constant Nymph* (1943). By 1950, Brenda had left acting and pursued other interests. She had married William Holden in Las Vegas in 1941, a year after her divorce from Gaines. Together, they helped establish the Mt. Kenya Safari Club to protect African wildlife. The marriage, however, became increasingly unstable and ended in divorce in 1963. Brenda died of throat cancer in Palm Springs in 1992 at the age of 76.