Biography for
Arline Judge More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

21 February 1912, Bridgeport, Connecticut, USA

Date of Death

7 February 1974, West Hollywood, California, USA

Nickname

One-Take Sally

Height

5' 2" (1.57 m)

Mini Biography

Educated in a Catholic convent, Arline Judge began her career as a dancer in the act of entertainer Jimmy Durante. She met director Wesley Ruggles on a train; he got her started in films and then married her. Her career was spent mostly in low-budget B pictures. However, she did gain a measure of fame for having been married and divorced eight times.

IMDb Mini Biography By: frankfob2@yahoo.com

Mini Biography

This pert and pretty number was probably better known for her not-so-private off-camera escapades than for her commendable "B" work as a light comedienne in 30s and 40s films; nevertheless, Arline Judge livened up a number of them with her blue-eyed, brunette beauty and colorful characterizations. Her numerous marriages and divorces (8) equaled that of the more notable Hollywood husband-hunter Lana Turner. I guess you could say that she topped Lana only if you consider that Arline married 8 different men; Lana's eight marriages included one remarriage (to actor Stephen Crane). The two ladies even shared an ex-husband!

Connecticut-born Arline arrived on February 21, 1912. Her father, a newspaperman, moved his family to New York City while Arline was still young. She was eventually enrolled at the Ursuline Academy in the Bronx where, among other things, she studied dance. Briefly working in vaudeville, nightclubs and other New York musical shows, the petite-framed, eye-catching chorine was noticed for films by an RKO talent agent while appearing in the Broadway revue "The Second Little Show" in 1930.

Arline made her film debut in a flashy bit part in Bachelor Apartment (1931). After appearing fairly non-descriptively in An American Tragedy (1931) and Three Who Loved (1931), among others, she finally had people taking notice of her as a tawdry good-time girl in Are These Our Children (1931). 1931 also marked the year of marriage #1 - to Wesley Ruggles, nearly 13 years her senior, who directed her in the last-mentioned movie, and she subsequently gave birth to their son Wesley, Jr. Nicknamed "One-Take Sally", Arline proved adaptable at both snappy comedy and teary drama, easily alternating her services between a wacky Wheeler and Woolsey farce such as Girl Crazy (1932) or Helen Twelvetrees weepie, Young Bride (1932). Her characters were often more trouble than they were worth as her scheming waitress in Is My Face Red? (1932) and adulterous wife in Flying Devils (1933) can attest.

After losing her RKO contract in 1933, Arline freelanced with lesser studios as various suspiciously-motivated ladies and was often cast for amusement. She enjoyed her many couplings with comic actor Jack Oakie in Looking for Trouble (1934), Shoot the Works (1934) and King of Burlesque (1936), and also worked time and again with her husband in the films Roar of the Dragon (1932), Shoot the Works (1934)_ and Valiant Is the Word for Carrie (1936). Arline could always be counted on to sparkle up lightweight comedy material such as College Scandal (1935), Here Comes Trouble (1936) and, the Sonja Henie capade One in a Million (1936) with her trademark effervescence.

Divorced from Ruggles by 1937, she immediately got caught up in a tabloid triangle that resulted in marriage #2 (only hours after her divorce was finalized) with one of her battling beaus, Daniel Reid Topping. This marriage to Topping, who in 1945 (after their divorce) co-purchased the New York Yankees, lasted about two years and produced another son, Daniel, Jr. A third impulsive marriage, less than a month after her second divorce in 1940, came in the form of hotel executive James Bryant. Less than a year later she was again on the dating scene.

The trials and tribulations of Arline's hectic private life took up a lot of time and severely hampered the momentum of her film career. Five years after her last movie, she finally resurfaced again in the uneventful comedy Harvard, Here I Come! (1941), which led to a few war-era "B" and "C" rankers including The Lady Is Willing (1942), Song of Texas (1943), G.I. Honeymoon (1945) and From This Day Forward (1946). A bit part as a manicurist in the Harold Lloyd comedy The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (1947) (aka _Mad Wednesday) ended her 1940s movie run. In between there was an eight-day "marriage" to Royal Air Force Captain James Adams (1942); a slightly longer union to ad exec Vincent Ryan (1945); and a sixth marriage to Henry (Bob) Topping, brother of second husband Daniel. After her second Topping family divorce, Henry went on to marry Lana Turner. Unlucky husbands No. 7 and 8 were George Ross III and Beverly Hills inventor Edward Cooper, her final union ending in 1960.

Interspersed with all this marriage mayhem were some isolated TV guest roles in such series as "Perry Mason" and a final leap back in films as the mom of William Wellman Jr. in the poorly acted drama A Swingin' Summer (1965), which included surf music (!) and as one of the strangling victims of The Crawling Hand (1963), a low-grade horror opus. By the mid-60s Arline had given up on pursuing both career (save a few commercials) and husbands. She lived out her final years in her West Hollywood digs and was found dead of natural causes on February 7, 1974, just shy of her 62nd birthday . She was survived by her two sons and buried in her home state of Connecticut.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net

Spouse

Edward Cooper Heard	(1955 - 2 November 1960) (divorced)
George Ross III	(18 January 1949 - 19?) (divorced)
Henry J. (Bob) Topping	(29 April 1947 - 1947) (divorced)
Vincent Morgan Ryan	(3 August 1945 - 1947) (divorced)
James Ramage Addams	(7 October 1942 - 24 July 1945) (divorced)
James M. Bryant	(4 May 1940 - 1941) (divorced)
Daniel Topping	(9 April 1937 - 3 May 1940) (divorced) 1 child
Wesley Ruggles	(15 October 1931 - 9 April 1937) (divorced)

Trivia

Buried in St. John's Russian Orthodox Cemetery in Stratford, Connnecticut, not far from another local celebrity, Igor Sikorsky.

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