Frances Howard (actress)

The Hollywood Branch Library in the Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles is named for Howard and acts as an archival repository for many film history collections. The library was funded by The Samuel Goldwyn Foundation in 1982 after the predecessor building was destroyed in an arson fire.

On July 2, 1976, at the age of 73, Howard died in Beverly Hills, California more than a year after being diagnosed with advanced cancer, for which she refused treatment which would have required invasive and disfiguring surgery. She was interred next to her husband at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale.

Howard began her professional career at age 16 with a stock theater company. When she was 21, Howard portrayed a flapper on Broadway in The Intimate Stranger. She followed that part with another flapper role in The Best People. Paramount signed her to a five-year contract, and she co-starred in the film The Swan. She also appeared in Too Many Kisses (1925). She had the contract canceled when she decided to marry.

Howard married Samuel Goldwyn, more than two decades her senior, on April 23, 1925. They remained married until Goldwyn's death on January 31, 1974. They had one son, Samuel Goldwyn Jr.; their grandsons are actors Tony and John Goldwyn.

Frances Howard Goldwyn (née McLaughlin; June 4, 1903 – July 2, 1976) was an American actress. She was the second wife of producer Samuel Goldwyn, and the paternal grandmother of actors Tony and John Goldwyn.

Frances Howard McLaughlin was born in Kansas City, Kansas, or Omaha, Nebraska, in 1903 to Helen Victoria (née Howard) and Charles Douglas McLaughlin. She was raised as a Catholic. Her mother, nicknamed "Bonnie", had been raised a Quaker but converted to Catholicism, predeceasing her daughter by only five years. Her father was reportedly a grandson of Irish nationalist politician Daniel O'Connell. Howard had two sisters and a brother.