- Born Name: Owena Wolcott
- Birthday: 1910-06-16 (Year-Month-Day)
- Website:
- Spouse(s):
- Children:
- Medium: Actress
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Ona Munson, Ona Munson (June 16, 1910 – February 11, 1955) was an American actress perhaps best known for her portrayal of prostitute Belle Watling in Gone with the Wind (1939).[edit] CareerShe first came to fame on Broadway as the singing and dancing ingenue in the original production of No, No, Nanette. From this, Munson had a very successful stage and radio career in 1930s in New York. She introduced the song Youre the Cream in My Coffee in the 1927 Broadway musical Hold Everything.Her first starring role was in a Warner Brothers talkie called Going Wild (1930). Originally this film was intended as musical but all the numbers were removed prior to release due to the publics distaste for musicals which had virtually saturated the cinema in 1929-1930. Munson appeared the next year in a musical comedy called Hot Heiress in which she sings several songs along with her co-star Ben Lyon. She also starred in Broadminded (1931) and Five Star Final (1931). She briefly retired from the screen, only to return in 1938. Another roll was as Mother Gin Sling in the (1941) The Shanghai GestureWhen David O. Selznick was casting his production Gone with the Wind, he first announced that Mae West was to play Belle, but this was a publicity stunt. Tallulah Bankhead refused the role as too small. Munson herself was the antithesis of the voluptuous Belle: freckled and of slight build. But her skills as an actress electrified her screen test[citation needed]: it was all in the voice. She spoke deep and throaty in her test, and her voice conveyed sexiness and worldliness. The rest could be remedied by the wardrobe and makeup departments.Munson’s career was stalemated by the acclaim of Gone with the Wind; for the remainder of her career, she was typecast in similar roles. Two years later, she played a huge role as another madam, albeit a Chinese one, in Josef von Sternbergs film noir The Shanghai Gesture.For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Ona Munson has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6211 Hollywood Boulevard.[edit] Personal lifeMunson was born Owena Wolcott in Portland, Oregon. She was married three times, to actor and director Edward Buzzell in 1927, to Stewart McDonald in 1941, and designer Eugene Berman in 1949.In 1955, plagued by ill health, she committed suicide at the age of 44 with an overdose of barbiturates in her apartment in New York. A note found next to her deathbed read, This is the only way I know to be free again...Please dont follow me.[edit] External linksOna Munson at the Internet Movie DatabaseOna Munson at the Internet Broadway DatabaseOna Munson at Find a GravePersondataNameMunson, OnaAlternative namesWolcott, OnaShort descriptionActressDate of birthJune 16, 1910Place of birthPortland, OregonDate of deathFebruary 11, 1955Place of deathNew York City, New YorkRetrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ona_MunsonCategories: 1910 births | 1955 deaths | Actors who committed suicide | American film actors | Bisexual actors | Drug-related suicides in New York | People from Portland, Oregon | Vaudeville performers | LGBT people from the United StatesHidden categories: Articles needing additional references from August 2010 | All articles needing additional references | Articles with hCards | All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements from August 2010Personal toolsLog in / create accountNamespacesArticleDiscussionVariantsViewsReadEditView historyActionsSearchNavigationMain pageContentsFeatured contentCurrent eventsRandom articleDonate to WikipediaInteractionHelpAbout WikipediaCommunity portalRecent changesContact WikipediaToolboxWhat links hereRelated changesUpload fileSpecial pagesPermanent linkCite this pagePrint/exportCreate a bookDownload as PDFPrintable versionLanguagesDeutschEspañolFrançaisItalianoMagyarPolskiPortuguêsSrpskohrvatski / Српскохрватски This page was last modified on 2 February 2011 at 23:52.Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License;additional terms may apply.See Terms of Use for details.Wikipedia is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.Contact usPrivacy policyAbout WikipediaDisclaimersif ( window.mediaWiki ) {mediaWiki.config.set({wgCanonicalNamespace: , wgCanonicalSpecialPageName: false, wgNamespaceNumber: 0, wgPageName: Ona_Munson, wgTitle: Ona Munson, 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