Marcia Mae Jones

Interviewed in "Growing Up on the Set: Interviews with 39 Former Child Actors of Classic Film and Television" by Tom Goldrup and Jim Goldrup (McFarland, 2002).

Also acted under her birth name "Marsha Mae Jones" in two episodes of The Cisco Kid: The Cisco Kid: Hypnotist Murder (1951) and The Cisco Kid: Ghost Town (1952).

Jones's first husband was a lieutenant commander in the Merchant Marines. The couple had two sons (sons Denny [b. 1945] and Tim [b. 1947]). Her second husband was screenwriter Bill Davenport (Hogan's Heroes (1965)).

Despite a four-year age difference, Marcia Mae and Shirley acted well with each other, and they appeared together again in The Little Princess (1939).

She was originally cast to play Becky Thatcher in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938), but after a growth spurt, the studio thought she was too tall for the role and recast her as Mary Sawyer.

In 1937, she played the crippled Klara in Heidi (1937). The film starred two other child actors, Delmar Watson (as with Marcia Mae, all of Delmar's siblings were actors) and Shirley Temple.

In 1936, she played a terrified victim of school bullying in These Three (1936), a role that brought her much attention.

Her first major role was in Night Nurse (1931), in which she played a sick child that a sinister hospital staff was trying to murder. By age 10, Marcia Mae had appeared in several dramatic films.

Besides Shirley Temple and Delmar Watson, Marcia Mae worked with several other child stars of the 1930s, including Jane Withers, Bonita Granville, Jackie Moran, Sybil Jason, and her favorite, Jackie Cooper.

She made her acting debut when she was just six months old, when director James Cruze saw her in her baby carriage and immediately cast her as the baby in his film Mannequin (1926).

Marcia Mae Jones was born on August 1, 1924, to an acting family. Her mother, Freda Jones, was an actress, and all three of her siblings - Margaret Jones, Macon Jones, and Marvin Jones - were child actors. But Marcia Mae had the most successful career, and she was the only one of her siblings to become a child star.