Margaret Callahan

Not to be mistaken for a stage actress of that name 18901947 this Margaret Callahan August 12 1910 November 15 1981 was a conventeducated beauty of Irish ancestry who found herself briefly thrust into the spotlight as one of those many ornamental 1930s Hollywood ingénues First on stage with the Stuart Walker stock company in Cincinnati then in summer stock on Long Island she eventually made it to Broadway in 1934 and was near topbilled in a couple of shortlived plays Having attracted the attention of talent scouts Margaret was signed by RKO the following year to star in Hot Tip 1935 an agreeable racing comedy with Zasu Pitts and James Gleason His Family Tree 1935 a trite farce which invoked every Irish cliche in the book and flopped at the boxoffice and Seven Keys to Baldpate 1935 another remake of the classic featuring Margaret as Gene Raymonds love interest Easily the best of her sextet of films despite its title was the detective mystery Muss em Up 1936 a cleverly scripted minor film noir of the Raymond ChandlerDashiell Hammett hardboiled school directed with some flair by Charles Vidor Margaret costarred opposite Preston Foster as the gal who sends the telegram which effectively puts events into motion Her penultimate outing was Special Investigator 1936 another crime drama based on a story by Perry Mason creator Erle Stanley Gardner It starred Richard Dix as a criminal defense attorney the everversatile character actor J Carrol Naish as a vicious gangster boss and Margaret as the latters sister Since the picture made a healthy profit of 91000 at the box office one cannot help wondering why Margarets film career ended so abruptly after her swansong in a forgotten second feature western The year 1941 saw her back on Broadway as star of the Lillian Hellman play Cuckoos of the Hearth at the Morosco Theatre In 1944 she appeared in Ramshackle Inn by that time no longer a headliner After that she faded from the scene