Rare is the actress who changes her name to the character she plays either on the stage or in the movies. Anne Shirley is one who did just that when she took up the character of an orphan girl in November 1934's "Anne of Green Gables."
Born Dawn Paris, she remarkably was earning money for her widowed mother at four years old, appearing in early 1920s silents by her stage name Dawn O'Day. After a string of films as a childhood actress, Dawn fell so in love with playing Anne Shirley in "Anne of Green Gables," she permanently changed her name to the main character in Lucy Montgomery's 1908 novel. Set in the province of Prince Edward Island, Canada, farmer Matthew Cuthbert (O. P. Heggie) and his sister Marilla (Helen Westley) had contacted an orphanage for a young boy to help them on the farm. Instead, when Matthew arrived at the rail station to pick him up, a mixup by the orphanage had a bubbly, enthusiastic eleven year old girl greet them instead. On the trip back to the farm, the farmer is enchanted by the girl's charm, but Marilla needs some convincing.
Dawn was sixteen when she was selected from hundreds of applicants to play the popular character, a role Katherine Hepburn dreamed about having. Only 5"2" in height, Dawn's smallish figure tilted in Dawn's favor. Another older actress in a younger role in the movie was Anne's 11-year-old friend, Diana Barry, played by 23-year-old Gertrude Messinger. The first talkie and the second movie version of Montgomery's book, 1934's "Anne of Green Gables," covers several years in Anne's life, focusing on her love life, both as an adolescent and as a college student. The drama pits Anne's affair with Gilbert Blythe (Tom Brown), the son of Matthew's former girlfriend who jilted him many years ago. Matthew had long forgiven her and her family, but his sister Marilla is still bitter about the split.
"Anne of Green Gables" turned out to be an unexpected hit for RKO Pictures, becoming the studio's fourth most popular movie for the year. The film also created a buzz for the now-named Anne Shirley, an unusual feat for a silent movie childhood actress to make the transition to talkies. She had been one of four Alices in Walt Disney's first live-animated series, "Alice in Cartoonland," performing in one episode, 1925's 'Alice's Egg Plant.' She remained busy in movies after playing Anne, highlighted by her Academy Award nomination performance in 1937's "Stella Dallas" with Barbara Stanwyck. "Anne of Green Gables" also marked the screen debut of actress Ann Miller, an 11-year-older who, like Dawn O'Day, was the main support for her nearly deaf divorced mother who moved from Texas to Los Angeles. The young Miller can be spotted as one of Anne Shirley's fellow schoolmates.
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