Joyce Compton

Acting

Joyce Compton

Born 1907-01-27 · Lexington, Kentucky, USA

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Olivia Joyce Compton (January 27, 1907 – October 13, 1997) was an American actress. Compton was born in Lexington, Kentucky. (Despite frequent reports to the contrary, her name was not originally "Eleanor Hunt"; she had appeared in the film Good Sport (1931) with Hunt and this confusion in an early press article followed Compton throughout her career.) After graduating high school she spent two years studying at the University of Tulsa, studying dramatics, art, music and dancing. She won a personality and beauty contest and spent two months in a film studio as an extra. Compton first made a name for herself when she was named one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars in 1926, alongside Mary Brian, Dolores Costello, Joan Crawford, Dolores del Río, Janet Gaynor and Fay Wray. Compton appeared in a long string of mostly B-movies from the 1920s through the 1950s. She was a comedy actress and protested at being stereotyped as a "dumb blonde". Among her over two hundred films were Imitation of Life, Magnificent Obsession, The Awful Truth, Mildred Pierce, and The Best Years of Our Lives. A devout Christian, on her gravestone, just beneath her dates of birth and death, is written "Christian Actress". She died from natural causes, aged 90, and was buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills.

Acting credits

The Best Years of Our Lives poster
7.7

It's the hope that sustains the spirit of every GI: the dream of the day when he will finally return home. For three WWII veterans, the day has arrived. But for each man, the dream is about to become a nightmare.

The Best Years of Our Lives

1946

Ziegfeld Girl poster
6.6

Discovery by Flo Ziegfeld changes a girl's life but not necessarily for the better, as three beautiful women find out when they join the spectacle on Broadway: Susan, the singer who must leave behind her ageing vaudevillian father; vulnerable Sheila, the working girl pursued both by a millionaire and by her loyal boyfriend from Flatbush; and the mysterious European beauty Sandra, whose concert violinist husband cannot endure the thought of their escaping from poverty by promenading her glamor in skimpy costumes.

Ziegfeld Girl

1941

Mildred Pierce poster
7.6

A hard-working mother inches towards disaster as she divorces her husband and starts a successful restaurant business to support her spoiled daughter.

Mildred Pierce

1945

Mighty Joe Young poster
6.4

A young woman, Jill Young, grew up on her father's ranch in Africa, raising a large gorilla named Joe from an infant. Years later, she brings him to Hollywood to become a star.

Mighty Joe Young

1949

Jet Pilot poster
5.5

John Wayne stars as U.S. Air Force aviator Jim Shannon, who's tasked with escorting a Soviet pilot (Janet Leigh) claiming -- at the height of the Cold War -- that she wants to defect. After falling in love with and wedding the fetching flyer, Shannon learns from his superiors that she's a spy on a mission to extract military secrets. To save his new wife from prison and deportation, Shannon devises a risky plan in this 1957 drama.

Jet Pilot

1957

If I Had a Million poster
6.5

An elderly business tycoon, believed to be dying, decides to give a million dollars each to eight strangers chosen at random from the phone directory.

If I Had a Million

1932

Sorry, Wrong Number poster
6.8

Leona Stevenson is confined to bed and uses her telephone to keep in contact with the outside world. One day she overhears a murder plot on the telephone and is desperate to find out who is the intended victim.

Sorry, Wrong Number

1948

Manpower poster
6.5

Hank McHenry and Johnny Marshall work as power company linesmen. Hank is injured in an accident and subsequently promoted to foreman of the gang. Tensions start to show in the road crew as rivalry between Hank and Johnny increases.

Manpower

1941

The Awful Truth poster
7.2

Unfounded suspicions lead a married couple to begin divorce proceedings, whereupon they start undermining each other's attempts to find new romance.

The Awful Truth

1937

Christmas in Connecticut poster
7.0

While recovering in a hospital, war hero Jefferson Jones grows familiar with the "Diary of a Housewife" column written by Elizabeth Lane. Jeff's nurse arranges with Elizabeth's publisher, Alexander Yardley, for Jeff to spend the holiday at Elizabeth's bucolic Connecticut farm with her husband and child. But the column is a sham, so Elizabeth and her editor, Dudley Beecham, in fear of losing their jobs, hasten to set up the single, childless and entirely nondomestic Elizabeth on a country farm.

Christmas in Connecticut

1945

You and Me poster
6.6

Mr. Morris, the owner of a large metropolitan department store, gives jobs to paroled ex-convicts in an effort to help them reform and go straight. Among his 'employed-prison-graduates' are Helen Roberts and Joe Dennis, working as sales clerks. Joe is in love with Helen and asks her to marry him, but she is forbidden to marry as she is still on parole, but she says yes and they are married. In spite of their poverty-level life, their marriage is a happy one until Joe discovers she has lied about her past, in order to marry him. Disillusioned, he leaves, goes back to his old gang and plans to rob the department store.

You and Me

1938

They Drive by Night poster
6.9

Joe and Paul Fabrini are Wildcat, or independent, truck drivers who have their own small one-truck business. The Fabrini boys constantly battle distributors, rivals and loan collectors, while trying to make a success of their transport company.

They Drive by Night

1940

Beauty Parlor poster
7.5

Film follows the romantic exploits of two depression-era manicurists, one of whom is being woo'd by a true gentleman of means, the other of whom lets herself become a pawn of operators of a call-girl ring.

Beauty Parlor

1932

Under Your Spell poster
7.3

A famous singer, bored with music and fans, goes to live in Mexico. His manager sends a woman to bring him back. They fall in love.

Under Your Spell

1936

Westward Passage poster
6.3

A struggling writer divorces his wife to pursue his career without interference, but they meet in Europe years later after she has remarried.

Westward Passage

1932

Silver Spurs poster
4.8

Jerry Johnson inherits a 50,000 acre ranch. Lucky Miller wants to take over the ranch. Roy is trying to get a railroad spur right of way. Lucky has a woman come west to marry Jerry to get control of the ranch. After the wedding, Lucky has the owner killed. Roy’s gun is substituted for the murder weapon, so Roy is put in jail.

Silver Spurs

1943

Turnabout poster
6.0

Bickering husband and wife Tim and Sally Willows mutter a few angry words to a statue who grants their wish and they wind up living each other's life.

Turnabout

1940

Thunder Birds poster
6.0

On a secluded base in Arizona, veteran World War I pilot Steve Britt trains flyers to fight in World War II. One of his trainees, Englishman Peter Stackhouse, competes with Britt for the affections of Kay Saunders, the daughter of a local rancher. Despite their differences, Britt makes sure Sutton passes his training and becomes a combat pilot -- even though he loses Kay to the young man in the process.

Thunder Birds

1942

Imitation of Life poster
7.0

A struggling widow and her daughter take in a black housekeeper and her fair-skinned daughter. The two women start a successful business but face familial, identity, and racial issues along the way.

Imitation of Life

1934

Scared to Death poster
4.3

A woman is married to the son of a doctor, the proprietor of a private sanatorium, where she is under unwilling treatment. Both the son and the doctor indicate they want the marriage dissolved. Arriving at the scene is a mysterious personage identified as the doctor's cousin who formerly was a stage magician in Europe. He is accompanied by a threatening dwarf.

Scared to Death

1947

Go Into Your Dance poster
7.2

An irresponsible Broadway star gets mixed up with gambling and gangsters.

Go Into Your Dance

1935

Exposed poster
6.2

A private eye and her sidekick solve the case of a dead client.

Exposed

1947

The Villain Still Pursued Her poster
5.2

Victorian melodrama is sent up in this spoof of the old production "The Drunkard; or, The Fallen Saved." Dastardly villain Silas Cribbs schemes to get his lusty clutches on the virtuous heroine by driving her naïve husband to alcoholic ruin. Luckily, a temperance lecturer is on hand to set things straight, as is Buster Keaton as William Dalton, the drunkard's friend.

The Villain Still Pursued Her

1940

Rose of Washington Square poster
6.7

Rose Sargent, a Roaring '20s singer, becomes a Ziegfeld Follies star as her criminal husband gets deeper in trouble.

Rose of Washington Square

1939