Margaret Hayes Profile

Margaret Hayes

	(Florette Regina Ottenheimer)
5 December 13	is born in Baltimore, Maryland, to real estate man Jacob Ottenheimer and his wife, the former Clara Bussey
?	grows up in the Forest Park section of Baltimore, Maryland
?	attends Johns Hopkins Teachers College
?	marries Charles Debuskey
37	her daughter Nan is born
?	goes to New York to work as a model and calls herself Florette DeBussy
November 38	is reported a newcomer to the New York midtown sector. “All the dandies are begging introductions to.”
?	her Stork Club friends decide that Florette DeBussy sounds too deliberately theatrical and rename her Dana Dale
39	divorces Debuskey. He will die in 1958 in Baltimore, Maryland.
40	is voted the best artists’ model
c. 40	screen-tests in New York and finally goes to Warner Brothers. Since there’s already a Virginia Dale, her studio renames her Dana Edwards.
April 40	is signed by Warner Brothers. Columnist Walter Winchell thinks that her billboard and magazine ad likenesses did it.
May 40	as Dana Dale, she is nightclub stepping with Bob Ritchie, popular man about town
July 40	screams for help and starts a stampede when a bee bites her on the knee
August 40	helps Jeffrey Lynn with his fan mail
October 40	columnist Jimmy Fidler asks: “Why did Jeffrey Lynn knock Kay Stewart’s bridal bouquet from fiancée Dana Dale’s hands as she was about to catch it? According to superstition, the catcher would be next wed - but did Jeffrey’s act mean he isn’t serious about marrying the gal?...”
	Jeffrey Lynn’s reported doing the East Coast with Dors Carson on his arm. “Maybe he heard about the three fortune tellers who told Dana not to wed before October, 1941.”
	is painfully bruised when thrown while horseback riding on Paramount’s In Old Colorado location
November 40	her name is changed from Dana Dale to Dana Edwards. “So Virginia Dale will have the sole right to the Dale name on the Paramount set. They flipped a coin to see who would chose a new name, and red-haired Dana lost. Given a list of names, she chose Edwards.”
January 41	her husband, from whom she’s been parted for many years, is reported readying divorce papers
c. 41	Paramount changes her name to Margaret Hayes
?	is voted the best photographers’ model
?	gets engaged to actor Jeffrey Lynn
May 41	columnist Walter Winchell asks: “Now that he and Dana Dale have parted, hasn’t Jeffrey Lynn returned to his first love, Doris Carson?”
June 41	she and Jeffrey Lynn are still as "closeasthis," despite their outside dating
	when Jeffrey Lynn is working, she is kept from being lonely by Sidney Guilaroff, who takes her to the Beverly Tropics for dinner
July 41	columnist Jimmy Fidler recommends to blue pencil reports of her tiff with Lynn; after eight weeks on the outs, they have kissed and made up
	she and Lynn resume their torrid romance after a series of tiffs
October 41	asks Paramount for bigger and better roles. She says she doesn’t care how tough they are, so she’s cast in The Lady Has Plans.
Late December 41	organizes other Paramount youngsters into a "Bundles for Bluejackets" group on behalf of U.S. sailors
?	before joining the Army, Lynn gives her his station wagon
May 42	the main reason she hasn’t taken off for that scheduled visit to Jeffrey Lynn, now army-camped in the East, is Leif Erickson, who’s dating her nightly. Erickson’s the estranged husband of actress Frances Farmer.
9 June 42	her publicity representative in Hollywood says that Margaret and Erickson met there two months ago and they have been romancing by telephone during Erickson’s stay at a Lake Tahoe resort, where he established a Nevada divorce residence.
12 June 42	at his divorce from Farmer in Los Angeles, Erickson tells newspapermen that he and Margaret probably will be married in Los Angeles, but he declines to set a definite date.
	marries Erickson in Minden a few hours after his divorce from Farmer. The ceremony is performed by a justice of the peace. They give their age as "over 21." Afterwards the couple returns to Los Angeles. He’s 27; she’s 25.
June - July 42	their marriage lasts a month
August 42	everybody expects her and Lynn to kiss and make up now that Erickson’s definitely out of her life
September 42	columnist Louella Parsons writes that so far Margaret and Lynn have made no public appearance together
Early September 42	she and Erickson defer their divorce fireworks for the duration
October 42	tells friends she will try the New York stage
	is seen at the Players with Captain Charles Vanda
	columnist Dorothy Kilgallen asks if Margaret will see Private Jeffrey Lynn now that both are in town
November 42	is in New York for three radio shows and a Broadway stage production
	she and Jack Diamond of the Copacabana will trek to the altar when her divorce from Erickson is final. They were New York sweethearts when she was Dana Dale.
January 43	an aunt leaves her $45,000
May 43	is at Doctor’s Hospital with pneumonia
June 43	is asked to screen-test for 20th Century-Fox
January 45	she and USN Lieutenant John Howard are a "heartillery barrage." She just returned from the Coast.
August 45	is offered the lead in the Australian production of The Voice of the Turtle
c. 47	lives at 123 East 55th Street, New York City
Late 40s	becomes fashion editor for Life magazine
10 October 47	marries Herbert Bayard Swope, Jr., at the Municipal Building, New York City. He’ll become a producer-director.
Early February 49	her son, Herbert Bayard, "Rusty," is born at Harkness Pavilion, New York. He will become an actor.
20 February 52	her daughter Tracy Brooks is born in New York City. She will become an actress.
55	is nominated for an Oscar for her performance in Blackboard Jungle
July 56	is signed as a regular for the upcoming season of "Wyatt Earp"
February 58	claims her 20th Century-Fox producer-husband is no help to her career. "I love my husband and I’m proud of his work but I never mention I’m married to him when I go on interviews for parts."
April 58	hopes to organize a troupe of "non-glamour puss" actresses to go to Russia as part of the new cultural exchange program
August 58	attends the splash party at Romanoff’s after the premiere of The Big Country with her husband
October 60	she and Swope arrive in New York from the West Coast. Swope will confer with Jonathan Winters on their projected teleseries, "The Twist," which Swope will produce and direct, with Winters writing and starring. She is slated for several TV shows while in New York.
February 61	she and writer Thelma Schnee host a seance in Beverly Hills
February 62	while she and Rita Hayworth sneeze in an apartment they share at the Summit Hotel, a sneak thief makes off with a bag belonging to Margaret containing important papers, jewelry and cash
March 62	is in CBS-TV’s "Tonight in Samarkand" opposite James Mason and Janice Rule
April 64	her young son, Herbert Bayard Swope III, joins her daytime television soap opera "A Time for Us"
?	is on the New York stage in Fair Game for Lovers and Step on a Crack
?	becomes director of special events for Bergdorf Goodman’s stores
60s	retires from the screen to design and sell jewelry in New York and Palm Beach, Florida, where she opens a boutique
Mid-73	amicably divorces Swope, who has become an international financier
December 73	is given a party by Carol Haussamen to celebrate her divorce from Swope
70s	resides in Palm Beach, Florida
6 January 77	dies at age 63 at the Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, Florida, from cancer and hepatitis. Three children survive.

Sources: The New York Times, The Zanesville Signal, The Ruthven Free-Press, Nevada State Journal, The Mansfield News-Journal, The Helena Independent, Reno Evening Gazette, The Lowell Sun, The Coshocton Tribune, Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, Syracuse Herald-Journal, The Lima News, The Sunday Gleaner, The Times Recorder, The Valley Independent, The Post-Standard, The Port Arthur News, Oakland Tribune, The Brainerd Daily Dispatch, www.Ancestry.com
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Links: Filmography