Virginia Sale (May 20, 1899 – August 23, 1992) was an American character actress whose career spanned six decades, during most of which she played older women, even when she was in her twenties. Over the 46 years she was active as an actress, she worked in films, stage, radio and television. She was famous for her one-woman stage show, Americana Sketches, which she did for more than 1,000 performances during a 15-year span.
Married to actor and studio executive Sam Wren, she co-starred with him in one of the first television family comedies, Wren's Nest, in the late 1940s and early 1950s. She gave birth to fraternal twins, Virginia and Christopher, in 1936. Later in her career she worked on television, and in commercials. She died from heart failure at the age of 93 at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in 1992.
Early life
Born on May 20, 1899, in Urbana, Illinois to Frank Orville and Lillie Belle (Partlow) Sale, she attended the University of Illinois for two years, before transferring to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, from which she graduated.[1] Her brother, vaudeville comedian Charles "Chic" Sale, convinced her to leave New York and pursue a career in Hollywood films.[2]
Career
Upon her arrival in Hollywood, Sale quickly discovered it was easier for her to get character roles as older women. Even though she was still in her twenties, Sale was cast as old women in many films.[2] Her career began at the end of the silent film era, with her first film being Legionnaires In Paris (1927).[3] Her early career included roles in Moby Dick (1930), Oliver Twist (1933), and Madame Du Barry (1934).[4] During this period she met actor and studio executive Sam Wren, and the two were married in 1935. The following year she gave birth to fraternal twins, Virginia and Christopher.[2]
In 1947, she had a recurring role in back-to-back films centered on a detective character, Russ Ashton (played by Tom Neal): The Hat-box Mystery and The Case of the Baby Sitter. While a series based on the character might have been planned, these were the only two films produced about the character by Screen Art Pictures.[5][6]
As the television industry began, Sale's husband, Sam Wren, developed a sitcom for the new medium. Entitled Wren's Nest, it centered around the family life of the Wrens, starring the couple and their twin twelve-year-old children, and ran three times a week during 1949.[1]
Sale took a hiatus from the film industry in the 1950s, focusing on television, mainly in commercials. In the 1960s, she began to appear on episodic television, including a featured role as the first Selma Plout on Petticoat Junction from 1964 to 1965 (with guest appearances in 1966 and 1969 as Maude Blake and Myra King)[1][7] She also returned to the big screen, appearing in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1967), and One Man's Way (1964).[4] Her final film appearance was in a small role in 1973's Slither, starring James Caan, Peter Boyle, and Sally Kellerman.
Later years
She remained married to her husband, Sam, until his death in 1962. In her final years, she lived at the Motion Picture and Television Country Hospital in Woodland Hills, California, where she died on August 23, 1992, from heart failure.[1][2] She was interred next to her husband in Arlington National Cemetery, in Arlington, Virginia, where he had earned a burial plot for his service in World War I.[8]
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