Joyce Coad
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Joyce Coad (April 14, 1917-May 3, 1987) was a child actress in motion pictures from Wyoming.
[edit] Child prodigy
Coad was the survivor of triplets whose parents died shortly after she was born. She was adopted by a childless couple and taken to Los Angeles, California. By the age of five she became a reader of children's stories on radio KHJ-AM in Los Angeles with the Beacon Light Company. It was commented that Coad's genius was first observed when she began to commit to memory songs, speeches, and music she heard over the radio.
[edit] Film actress
Coad's good fortune was moving to Los Angeles at the same time that MGM was searching for a million dollar baby. She won a contest conducted by a local newspaper and was brought to Hollywood to play the leading role in Hearts In Dixie. She was selected from among one thousand youngsters to play a part in The Devil's Circus (1926). Directed by J. Leo Meehan, Coad played the role of Little Anita. She performed the role of Pearl in The Scarlet Letter (1926), a film which featured Lillian Gish. Louis B. Mayer chose Victor Seastrom to direct the movie. He proved a fine choice because of his attentiveness to characterization. Drums of Love (1928), directed by D.W. Griffith, is set in the middle of the nineteenth in South America. Coad appeared in the part of the little sister in a screen production which starred Lionel Barrymore, Don Alvarado, and Tully Marshall.
In June 1937 Coad was cast in The Deerslayer which was being filmed by Standard Pictures. She was twenty and her film appearances had declined after 1931. She played the role of Elsa The German Milkmaid in Captured! (1933).
Joyce Coad died in California in 1987.
[edit] References
- Los Angeles Times, New Voices On Air, October 19, 1924, Page B8.
- Los Angeles Times, Child Prodigy Given Place in Picture Cast, November 29, 1925, Page C29.
- Los Angeles Times, Film to Start, June 7, 1937, Page A16.
- Middletown, New York Daily Times-Press, Orphan Adopted in Wyoming Turns Out To Be Screens' Million Dollar Child, Saturday, May 8, 1926, Page 10.
- New York Times, A Nathaniel Hawthorne Classic, August 10,1926, Page 19.
- New York Times, Screen Notes, November 21, 1926, Page X5.
- New York Times, Paolo and Francesca, January 25, 1928, Page 20.
- Syracuse Herald, At Syracuse Theaters, Wednesday Evening, January 20, 1932, Page 10.
