During her career, she acted in Westerns, a popular genre in the 1940s, as well as family comedies and musicals. In 1951, she appeared in the television series The Cisco Kid.
Hall performed her last acting role in 1952, when she was 28.
Early years
Ellen Hall's mother was the actress Ella Hall, and her father was actor-turned-director Emory Johnson. The couple married in a private ceremony in 1917.[1] After their honeymoon, the newlyweds moved into Johnson's Los Angeles residence, which they shared with his mother, Emilie Johnson. The oldest of Hall's siblings, Emory Waldemar Johnson Jr, was born on January 27, 1919.[2] The Johnson's second child, Alfred Bernard Johnson, was born on September 26, 1920.[3] Ellen Hall was born Ellen Joanna Johnson on April 19, 1923.[4]
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.[5]
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.[6] In 1932, Emory Johnson declared bankruptcy to reduce his financial obligations towards Ella and their children.[7]
Career
Hall appeared in her first large-scale production when she was seven. Her mother secured roles for her and her ten-year-old brother, Waldmar, in the 1930 Universal production All Quiet on the Western Front.[8]
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.[6]
Comedies, glamour, and musicals
At the age of 18, Hall was chosen to play one of the background autograph seekers in the 1941 musical comedy The Chocolate Soldier.[9][10]
Following her 1944 marriage, Hall began accepting fewer film roles. In 1946, she acted in Thunder Town,[9][24] and in 1949, she accepted her final role in a Hollywood Western, in Lawless Code.[9][25]
Other genres and mediums
Interspersed with her 1944 Western roles, Hall also landed a role as the long-dead wife of Bela Lugosi in the 1944 film Voodoo Man.[9][26] After getting married, she acted in six more movies, and in 1951, she appeared in three episodes of the Western television series The Cisco Kid. Her final Hollywood production was the 1951 film Bowery Battalion,[9][27] and her last recorded film is the 1952 PFC production The Congregation.[9][28] She retired from making films at the age of 28.
Personal life
Marriage
In February 1944, Hall was working with actress Ann Sheridan on a scene for the Warner Bros. production Shine On, Harvest Moon.[29] While on set, Sheridan introduced Hall to Lee Langer, a Marine fighter pilot who had seen action in the Guadalcanal campaign.[a] Hall and Langer immediately connected, and two weeks later, on March 13, 1944, they announced their engagement. Hall was 20 years old, while Langer was 25.[36] The couple married on December 3, 1944, in North Hollywood.[37]Rickie VanDusen was Hall's maid of honor.[38][39] Hall's mother, Ella, was friends with Mary Pickford,[40] 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.[39] A newspaper article describing the wedding referenced Hall's father as "the late Emory Johnson"; father and daughter were estranged at the time.[39]
After the wedding, Langer remained on active duty. The couple moved into a three-bedroom Spanish stucco-style home[41] in Los Angeles.[42] The military discharged Langer from active service on February 21, 1946.[43] A son was born to the couple on March 4, 1949.[citation needed] They would remain married until Langer's death, in 1995.[citation needed]
Retirement
By 1952, Hall had retired from acting. She was a Motion Picture & Television Fund volunteer group member and served as its volunteer president from 1969 to 1970.[44]
Langer became a restaurateur, managing the upscale Encore Cafe on La Cienega Boulevard.[45] In 1951, he also became a major in the Marine Reserves.[46]
Death
The couple eventually[when?] retired to Rosarito Beach, Mexico. Langer died in 1995 in San Ysidro, San Diego, at the age of 76.[47] The couple had been married for 50 years. After Langer's death, Hall moved to Bellevue, Nebraska. On March 24, 1999, she died of complications from a stroke while residing in Bellevue's Hillcrest Care and Rehabilitation Center. She was 75 at the time of her death. Her ashes were transported west and interred with her mother and sister at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. Her estranged father is buried a block away.[48]
^Nathan Hale "Toots" Langer was born on February 3, 1919, in Chicago, Illinois.[30] His Jewish parents immigrated to the United States from Austria in 1910.[31] After earning his diploma from Chicago's Bowen High School, he became a student at Bradley Polytechnic Institute, in Peoria, Illinois.[32] On September 26, 1941, Langer was 22 years old and a second-year student at Bradley when he volunteered for the United States Marine Corps;[33] he secured his commission as a second lieutenant in June 1942.[34]
Lieutenant Langer received his assignment to the marine squadron VMA-124. It became operational on December 28, 1942, and subsequently deployed to Guadalcanal on February 12, 1943. VMA-124 remained in the Solomon Islands until September 1943.[35]
References
^"Ella Hall Takes the Step". Motion Picture News. Motion Picture News, inc. September–October 1917. p. 2202. Retrieved July 29, 2024.
^"California Birth Index, 1905–1995". California Department of Public Health – Vital Records. 2005. Retrieved January 7, 2024. Waldemar Johnson Jr
^"California Birth Index, 1905–1995". California Department of Public Health – Vital Records. 2005. Retrieved January 7, 2024. Alfred Bernard Johnson
^"California Birth Index, 1905–1995". California Department of Public Health – Vital Records. 2005. Retrieved January 7, 2024. Ellen Joanna Johnson
_poster.jpg)
.jpg)
