Like Johnny Washbrook, Anita Louise Fremault began her acting career as a child. Born January 9, 1915 in New York City, her first acting performance was on Broadway at age six. She made her screen debut three years later in the 1924 silent film The Six Commandments. She dropped her surname in 1929, and continued acting through her teens, gracefully making the transition into a very successful adult film career. The beautiful five-foot-three blonde actress became a star in opulent costume dramas such as Madame DuBarry (1934), A Midsummer’s Night Dream (1935), Anthony Adverse (1936), and Marie Antionette (1938). She was selected to do a screen test for the role of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind in 1938, but the role went to Vivien Leigh.
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Her youthful beauty enabled her to continue in ingénue roles through the 1940’s, and she essentially ended her long career in motion pictures with Bulldog Drummond in 1947. At the time she was cast for the role of the loving and caring mother Nell McLaughlin in My Friend Flicka, she had been married to Buddy Adler—a top executive with 20th Century-Fox—for more than a decade, and they had two small children at home. However, after having been semi-retired since her marriage, she decided that she wanted to return to acting fulltime, and her husband thought that this would be the perfect vehicle for her. Before the Flicka series, she had made some appearances during her marriage though. She was a substitute host on the popular Loretta Young Show in 1953during Young’s recuperation from surgery. After Anita decided to leave My Friend Flicka—which was apparently the primary cause for Fox to end the series--she hosted Theater Time (1957) and Spotlight Playhouse (1958) on television. She also had roles in TV series like Mannix (1967) and Mod Squad (1968). After Buddy Adler’s death from lung cancer in 1960, she married businessman Henry Berger on April 12, 1962. They were wed until her death.
She succumbed to a stroke in Los Angeles on April 25, 1970, at the tragically young age of 55. During her later years, she had devoted a great deal of her time in helping with philanthropic causes such as the National Hemophilia Foundation and the Children’s Asthma Research Center. She was laid to rest in the Garden of Memory at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California.
She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in recognition of her contribution to Motion Pictures, at 6801 Hollywood Boulevard. |
