Esther Dale
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Esther Dale (November 10, 1885 – July 23, 1961) was an American actress, best known perhaps for her role as Aunt Genevieve in the 1935 Shirley Temple vehicle, Curly Top. On the stage, Dale starred in Carrie Nation on Broadway in 1933. Her other Broadway credits include Harvest of Years (1947), And Be My Love (1944), and Another Language (1932). Dale's first film was Crime Without Passion (1934) in an uncredited role. She was a familiar face in films of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, frequently playing stern, authoritarian characters such as prison matrons and head nurses, although she was equally adept at playing grande dames and ladies of the aristocracy. Dale played many roles in television over the years. In the 1958-1959 season of The Donna Reed Show, Dale played a job-seeking housekeeper who is frightened from the Stone home by Jeff Stone's pet mouse, and she appeared in the 1957 Maverick episode "According to Hoyle" opposite James Garner.
Dead End
as Mrs. FennerMobster "Baby Face" Martin returns home to visit the New York neighborhood where he grew up,...
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North to Alaska
as Woman at PicnicAfter striking gold in Alaska, the romantic George sends his womanizing partner Sam to bring his...
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The Awful Truth
as Mrs. LeesonUnfounded suspicions lead a married couple to begin divorce proceedings, whereupon they start...
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Mr. & Mrs. Smith
as Mrs. KrausheimerHappily married for three years, Ann and David Smith live in New York. One morning Ann asks...
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The Women
as Ingrid (uncredited)A happily married woman lets her catty friends talk her into divorce when her husband strays.
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Monkey Business
as Mrs. RhinelanderResearch chemist Barnaby Fulton works on a fountain of youth pill for a chemical company. One of...
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Fury
as Mrs. WhippleJoe, who owns a gas station along with his brothers and is about to marry Katherine, travels to...
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Holiday Affair
as Mrs. EnnisJust before Christmas, department store clerk Steve Mason meets big spending customer Connie...
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Made for Each Other
as Annie (uncredited)A couple struggle to find happiness after a whirlwind courtship.
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The Egg and I
as Birdie HicksWorld War II veteran Bob MacDonald surprises his new wife, Betty, by quitting his city job and...
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Tell No Tales
as Mrs. HaskinsA newspaper editor turns a kidnapping into the banner headlines and exclusive story that could...
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A Stolen Life
as Mrs. JohnsonA twin takes her deceased sister's place as wife of the man they both love.
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On Moonlight Bay
as uncreditedThe Winfield family moves into a new house in a small town in Indiana. Tomboy Marjorie Winfield...
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The Mortal Storm
as MartaThe Roth family leads a quiet life in a small village in the German Alps during the early 1930s....
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No Man of Her Own
as JosieA penniless pregnant woman adopts the identity of a rich woman killed in a train crash.
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Easy Living
as LillianJ.B. Ball, a rich financier, gets fed up with his free-spending family. He takes his wife's...
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The Amazing Mrs. Holliday
as uncreditedA missionary tries to outwit the U.S. government and smuggle Chinese orphans into the country.
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Arise, My Love
as SusieA dashing pilot and a vivacious reporter have romantic and dramatic adventures in Europe as...
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A Song Is Born
as Miss BraggThe story of seven scholars in search of an expert to teach them about swing music. They seem to...
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Forty Little Mothers
as Mrs. Mason the LandladyAn out-of-work professor gets a break from an old college buddy to teach at an exclusive girl's...
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Her Favorite Patient
as Martha GravittA beautiful female doctor visits her small hometown on her way back to Chicago. Her overworked...
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Curly Top
as Genevieve GrahamWealthy Edward Morgan becomes charmed with a curly-haired orphan and her pretty older sister...
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Private Worlds
as MatronAt the Brentwood Asylum for the mentally ill, psychiatrist partners Jane Everest and Alex...
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Aloma of the South Seas
as TarusaA young South Seas native boy is sent to the U.S. for his education and returns to his island...
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The Sound and the Fury
as Mrs. Maud MansfieldDrama focusing on a family of Southern aristocrats who are trying to deal with the dissolution...
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Blackmail
as SarahA fugitive from a chain gang becomes an oil-well firefighter and meets the man who framed him.
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The Case Against Mrs. Ames
as MatildaAn attorney falls for the woman he's representing on a murder charge.
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Too Young to Kiss
as Mrs. BoykinEric Wainwright, a busy impresario, is besieged by hordes of wannabe concert stars, eager for...
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The North Star
as Anna KurinA Ukrainian village must suddenly contend with the Nazi invasion of June 1941. Later re-edited...
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Broadway Serenade
as Mrs. Olsen, the LandladyA married singer, pianist/composer team are struggling to hit it big in New York. Finally, they...
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Women Without Names
as Head Matron InglesJoyce and Fred MacNeil's honeymoon comes to an abrupt and unsatisfying halt when Fred is accused...
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The Wedding Night
as Mrs. Kaise NovakWhile working on a novel in his country home in Connecticut, married writer Tony Barrett...
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Maisie Gets Her Man
as Mrs. McIntyre (Uncredited)Struggling performers, Sothern and Skelton's lives are thrown off gear when they are caught with...
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Betrayed Women
as Head Matron BallardLove-starved gun molls (Carole Mathews, Beverly Michaels) escape from a prison farm where...
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My Reputation
as AnnaTongues begin to wag when a lonely widow becomes romantically involved with a military man....
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Swanee River
as Temperance WomanSwanee River is a 1940 American biopic about Stephen Foster, a songwriter from Pittsburgh who...
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Old Acquaintance
as HarrietTwo writers, friends since childhood, fight over their books and lives.
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Ten Gentlemen from West Point
as Mrs. ThompsonThis historical drama tells the story of the first class to graduate from the U.S. Military...
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Margie
as Grandma McSweeneyA woman reminisces about her teenage years in the 1920s, when she fell in love with her teacher.
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Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair
as Birdie HicksMa and Pa are trying to raise enough money at the county fair to send their daughter Rosie to...
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Mary Burns, Fugitive
as KateA young woman who owns a coffee shop falls for a handsome young customer, unaware that he is a...
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Wrecking Crew
as Mike O'GlendyFollows a crew as they work under a deadline set by their boss to complete the demolition of a...
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The Great Man Votes
as Mrs. MarkhamIn 1923, Gregory Vance, a widower with two children, is a former scholar who has turned from...
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The Oklahoman
as Mrs. FitzgeraldAfter his wife dies in childbirth, a doctor settles down in the small Oklahoma town of Cherokee...
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I Live My Life
as Brumbaugh, Mrs. Gage's HousekeeperA society girl tries to make a go of her marriage to an archaeologist.
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Outcast
as Hattie SimmersonA physician in a small town suddenly finds himself the object of vilification and persecution...
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Untamed
as Mrs. SmithA courageous doctor braves a fierce blizzard in the Canadian wilderness to save a remote...
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Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki
as Birdie HicksMa and Pa, along with daughter Rosie, go off to Hawaii in answer to cousin Rodney's call for...
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Prison Farm
as Cora WaxleyShirley Ross plays an innocent young girl convicted for complicity in a crime committed by her...
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Dangerously They Live
as Dawson, Goodwin's HousekeeperA doctor tries to rescue a young innocent from Nazi agents.
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Back Street
as Mrs. SmithPreviously filmed in 1932, and remade a third time in 1961, this second film version of Fannie...
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6,000 Enemies
as Prison MatronA tough prosecutor who has sent dozens of criminals to prison finds himself framed on a bribery...
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Abe Lincoln in Illinois
as Lincoln's Cook (uncredited)Abe Lincoln in Illinois is a 1940 biographical film which tells the story of the life of Abraham...
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Blondie Goes to College
as Mrs. Carrie Dill, the LandladyDagwood Bumstead must receive a college diploma or lose his job with the Dithers Construction...
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Murder in Times Square
as Longacre LilAn actor becomes a suspect in the murders of four New Yorkers injected with rattlesnake venom.
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Laddie
as Sarah, the HousekeeperHandsome Laddie Stanton courts neighbor Pamela Pryor, meeting opposition from her stern military...
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I Dream Too Much
as Mrs. Dilley (uncredited)Opera student Annette Monard meets composer Jonathan Street, and in a buoyant, alcohol-fueled...
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The Unfinished Dance
as OlgaA young dance student accidentally cripples a teacher she doesn't like.
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Hollywood Boulevard
as MarthaWith a full Hollywood background and settings but more an expose of scandal-and-gossip magazines...
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Girls on Probation
as Mrs. EngstromA dizzy young girl falls into crime but wins her lawyer's heart.
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Bad Little Angel
as Miss Brown, Orphanage Secretary (uncredited)A bible-guided Victorian orphan befriends a bootblack in a strange town.
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Ma and Pa Kettle
as Mrs. Birdie HicksThe Kettles and their fifteen children are about to be evicted from their rundown rustic home...
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Smoky
as Mrs. 'Gram' RichardsClint Barkley first sees Smoky as a runaway, and drives him back to the ranch where he meets the...
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Crime Without Passion
as Miss Keeley (uncredited)Caddish lawyer Lee Gentry is going out with Katy Costello, but carrying on an affair with dancer...
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Cross-Country Romance
as Mrs. McGillicuddyA runaway heiress hides in a doctor's trailer for a rollicking trip to San Francisco.
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All-American Co-Ed
as Aunt Matilda CollingeFraternity brothers enter one of their own into a scholarship lottery after a women's college...
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A Letter From Bataan
as Mrs. JacksonAn American soldier pleads to the folks at home to conserve scarce wartime resources.
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Sergeant Madden
as Mrs. McGillivrayA dedicated police officer is torn between family and duty when his son turns to a life of crime.
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You're Telling Me
as Aunt Fannie HandleyHubert Abercrombie Gumm, a flighty, eccentric screwball acquires a job as an executive at a...
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A Child Is Born
as Prison Matron (uncredited)A pregnant prison inmate shares her problems with the patients in a maternity ward.
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Unfinished Business
as Aunt MathildaStarting with a cruel joke – a couple of callow men make a bet that one of them can seduce the...
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The Great Impersonation
as Mrs. UnthankThe second of the three film versions of the E. Phillips Oppenheim espionage thriller set...
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Walk Softly, Stranger
as Miss ThompsonA petty crook moves to an Ohio town and courts a factory owner's disabled daughter.
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Swing Your Partner
as Caroline Bird, aka Anna RobbinsCaroline Bird, the crotchety and stingy owner of Bird Milk Products, is not amused when her...
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What's Cookin'?
as Mrs. Murphy (uncredited)J. P. Courtney wants to update the music on the radio program he sponsors, but his wife, Agatha...
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And One Was Beautiful
as MargaretA teenager falls hard for an irresponsible playboy.
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On Stage Everybody
as Ma CassidyRadio's miracle show is on the screen.
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Big Town Czar
as Ma DaleyWhen gangster Phil Daley gets rid of his chief Paul Burgess he has everything that money can...
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Condemned Women
as Mrs. Clara Glover, Head MatronA shoplifter gets sentenced to a women's prison.
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Blondie Has Servant Trouble
as Anna VaughnThings get under way when Blondie Bumstead demands that her husband request a raise from his...
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Convicted Woman
as Chief Matron BrackettA reporter and a lawyer investigate a women's prison and help an inmate who does not belong there.
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Stolen Heaven
as LieschenTwo attractive jewel thieves, one female (Olympe Bradna), one male (Gene Raymond) escape...
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The Farmer in the Dell
as Ma BoyerAn Iowa farmer's wife makes him move to Hollywood so their daughter can become a star.
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Lady of Secrets
as Miss EcclesBecause of a very unhappy affair she had earlier in her life, a woman shuts herself off from the...
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On Such a Night
as Miss Belinda FentridgeWhen her husband is accused of murder, an actress tries to prove his innocence.
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Damaged Goods
as Mrs. DupontA groom-to-be contracts syphilis and wrestles with the consequences of his diagnosis.
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Surrender
as Aunt MayViolet Barton, a femme-fatale goal-setter, fascinates men and readily returns their affection to...
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A Tale of Two Cities
as ProssA dramatization originally for TV on the Plymouth Playhouse. A retelling of the Charles Dickens...
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How to Sub-Let
as Mrs. MustavasA man fumbles through an apartment sub-let assessment while his wife is away.
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Opened by Mistake
as Mrs. Anthony DeBorestA wise-guy reporter and a tippling sportswriter acquire an unclaimed trunk with a corpse inside.
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In Old Kentucky
as Dolly BreckenridgeHorse trainer Steve Tapley is caught between the feuding Martingale and Shattuck families. He...
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Behind City Lights
as Sarah LowellThis Republic programmer stars Lynne Roberts as a country gal who is slickered by a couple of...
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Timothy's Quest
as Hitty TarboxTimothy (Dickie Moore), an orphan, is sent with his sister, Gay (Sally Martin), to a farm run by...
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Wild Money
as Jenny HawkinsA tightwad accountant for a newspaper becomes friends with a reporter. The bookkeeper goes on...
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The Donna Reed Show
as uncreditedRevolves around typical family problems, such as firing a clumsy housekeeper, throwing a...
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The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis
as uncreditedThe Many Loves of Dobie Gillis is an American sitcom that aired on CBS from 1959 to 1963. The...
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Cavalcade of America
as Aunt TabithaCavalcade of America is an anthology drama series that was sponsored by the DuPont Company,...
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Mr. & Mrs. North
as uncreditedMr. & Mrs. North is an American comedy/mystery television series that aired on CBS from October...
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Maverick
as Ma BrausMaverick is an American Western television series with comedic overtones created by Roy Huggins....
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Thriller
as Ellen the MaidThriller is an American anthology television series that aired during the 1960–61 and 1961–62...
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M Squad
as Julia SheldonLt. Frank Ballinger is a no-nonsense plain clothes cop in the elite M Squad Division. The...
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Lock-Up
as uncreditedLock-Up is an American legal drama series that premiered in syndication in September 1959 and...
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December Bride
as uncreditedDecember Bride is an American sitcom that aired on the CBS television network from 1954 to 1959,...
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