Rochelle Elizabeth Hudson was an American film actress from the 1930s through the 1960s. Hudson was a WAMPAS Baby Star in 1931.[1]
Rochelle "was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. She was the daughter of Ollie Lee and Mae (née Goddard) Hudson. While in Oklahoma, she studied dancing, drama, piano, and voice. She began her acting career as a teenager, and completed her high school education at a high school on the Fox studios lot."[2]
She married Dick Hyland 18 December 1948 in Los Angeles.[3]
She passed away in 1972. [4]
Obituary:[5]
Former Movie Beauty, Rochelle Hudson, Dies
Palm Desert, Calif. (UPI)--Rochelle Hudson, a noted movie beauty of the 1930s and early 1940s, was found dead late Monday in her home at the Palm Desert County Club.
A business associate, Walter Price, with whom she had been working in real estate for the past three years, discovered Miss Hudson's body sprawled on the bathroom floor of the home. An autopsy was scheduled to determine the cause of death [this turned out to be a heart attack.]
Miss Hudson, who had her first movie role in a 1930 film starring Edna May Oliver, was in her 50s. She was in more than 75 films including starring roles with Wallace beery and Fredric March. She appeared in "Queen of Broadway" with Buster Crabbe in 1942 and then quit her film career.
In 1955, she returned to the screen in "Rebel Without a Cause" which starred James Dean and Natalie Wood. Then there was another hiatus, this one of eight years, before she took a part in "Strait-Jacket" with Joan Crawford in 1964. In the interim, she played in a television series called "That's My Boy" with Eddie Mayehoff.
Miss Hudson, three times married and three times divorced, was a petite 5 feet 4 inches with brown hair and hazel eyes. She was born in Oklahoma City and moved to California with her mother, Mae Hudson, when she was 12. She got her first interview in a movei studio when a neighbor heard her singing and steered her into a career. She signed a contract with RKO Studios and later 20th Century-Fox.
She was first married in 1939 to Hal Thompson who was a story editor at Disney Studios. That ended in divorced and she later wed Dick Hyland, a Los Angeles Times sport writer and former Stanford University Athlete.
She and her third husband, Robert Mindell, were divorced last year and the decree became final a little over a week ago, on Jan. 8.
Her only survivor is her mother who also lives at the Palm Desert Country Club. Mrs. Hudson said there would be no funeral services.
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