Rita johnson facebook
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Rita Johnson
Rita Ann Johnson (August 13, 1913 – October 31, 1965) was an American actress. Early in her career, Johnson was busy in radio. Johnson began acting on Broadway in 1935 and started her film career two years later. She played a murderer in Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941) and a doomed wife in the RKO film noir They Won't Believe Me (1947). In an incident that was never fully explained, Johnson suffered a head trauma on September 6, 1948 that required brain surgery.
Unsubstantiated rumors promulgated by gossip columnists such as Walter Winchell suggested she might have been abused by a boyfriend, but the only explanation she offered was that a large, industrial-grade hair dryer at her apartment had fallen on her. She was in a coma for two weeks and it was reported it took her a year to recover. Her left side was paralyzed temporarily and for a while she couldn't walk.
The injury put a virtual halt to her film career. Her screen time in movies after that was limited due to her reduced mobility and powers of concentration. Johnson suffered from alcoholism from the time
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Rita Johnson
Rita Johnson was born on 8/13/13 in Worcester Ma. She attended the New England Conservatory of Music, did summer stock, then moved on to Broadway in 1935. She was an extremely versatile actress, who played virtually every type of role. Unfortunately, her career came to a halt in 1948 after a hair dryer fell on her head, causing brain damage. Brain surgery was performed, but thereafter her screen time was very limited. She died in Los Angeles County General Hospital on Oct. 31, 1965. Miss Johnson was only 52 years old.
Rita Johnson was born on 8/13/13 in Worcester Ma. She attended the New England Conservatory of Music, did summer stock, then moved on to Broadway in 1935. She was an extremely versatile actress, who played virtually every type of role. Unfortunately, her career came to a halt in 1948 after a hair dryer fell on her head, causing brain damage. Brain surgery was performed, but thereafter her screen time was very limited. She died in Los Angeles County General Hospital on Oct. 31, 1965. Miss Johnson was only 52 years old.
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The Booby-Trapped Life of Rita Johnson
Images courtesy Barbara Coulter.
IT’S ALWAYS SEEMED ODD to me that no romantic comedy has featured a meet-cute between two people flirting over a celebrity’s corpse. Last summer I convinced a date to attend Marvin Hamlisch’s wake, and a few years ago, the peculiar case of Rita Johnson — an actress who would have turned 100 today — seemed the ideal bait with which to ensnare my then-professor. He had a mellifluous voice and regularly took time out from class to regale us with horror stories from a friend who’d been Barbra Streisand’s chauffeur. My term paper was about the connection between the dying god trope and the deaths of Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, and Montgomery Clift; in my research I stumbled on Rita, an MGM contract player who’d been hit in the head with a hair dryer in 1948 and was thereafter reduced to playing bit parts as nurses and psychiatrists. A 1952 UPI article had her saying, “Sometimes I drive alone to the top of the hill. I shake my fist at the city and I say, ‘Hollywood, city of bright lights, I’ll lick you yet.
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