Glenda Farrell Research Paper

Glenda Farrell was born in Enid, Oklahoma on June 30, 1901 (as confirmed by both the 1910 and 1920 censuses, and later by the Social Security Administration when she was issued SSN 573-03-9877). However, her date of birth is almost always listed as June 30, 1904, because like many actresses of her time, she shaved a few years off of her real age. Her parents were Charles Farrell, a horse and dog trader of Irish and Cherokee descent, and Wilhemina Farrell, who was of Alsatian (French/German) descent. Wilhemina must have once had aspirations of acting, because she knew from the beginning that she wanted her daughter to be an actress. When Glenda was still very young, the Farrells moved to Wichita, Kansas, where she made her stage debut as Little Eva in Uncle Tom’s Cabin and received a formal education at the Mount Carmel Catholic Academy. The family later moved to San Diego, California. There, she joined the Virginia Brissac Stock Company.

In 1920, Glenda was hired to do a dance routine at a San Diego Navy benefit ball. There, she met Thomas Richards, a young WWI hero and
As a result, she worked during the day as a saleslady, and a night in an artificial flower factory. Still, there wasn’t enough money, so Thomas and Glenda moved back in with the Farrells. In 1921, the baby, Tommy, was born. Sadly, the once-blissful marriage soon started to deteriorate. Thomas Richards, partially because of pain from his war wounds, and partially because of financial woes, became depressed and turned to alcohol to drown his sorrows. When he was drunk, he would sometimes become dangerous, and often would disappear, sometimes for entire months. Glenda tried to keep the marriage together, but as he got worse and worse, there was eventually no choice but to divorce him, which she did in 1929. In 1932, her son Tommy had his last name officially changed from Richards to