Natalie Moorhead

Natalie Moorhead
Moorhead in a publicity portrait in 1930
Born
Nathalian Moorhead

(1901-07-27)July 27, 1901
DiedOctober 6, 1992(1992-10-06) (aged 91)
Resting placeCalvary Cemetery, Santa Barbara, California
OccupationActress
Years active1927–1941
Spouses
Raymond Phillips
(m. 1929; div. 1930)
(m. 1930; div. 1935)
Robert J. Dunham
(m. 1942; died 1948)
(m. 1957; died 1983)

Natalie Moorhead (born Nathalian Moorhead, (July 27, 1901 – October 6, 1992) was an American film and stage actress. As a performer, she was known for her distinctive short platinum blond hair.

Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Moorhead gained an appreciation for theater and the opera from her father during her adolescence. After enrolling in a business school to pursue being a secretary for the government during World War I, Moorhead was discovered during a shopping trip on Fifth Avenue; thus beginning her career in theater. A 1927 production of Baby Cyclone, with her starring alongside a young Spencer Tracy, landed her in Hollywood. She began obtaining small film roles in the late 1920s, and was typically typecast in exotic roles, often as a vamp or "the other woman".

Her performances peaked in the 1930s, with films like The Benson Murder Case (1930), Shadow of the Law (1930), Parlor, Bedroom and Bath (1931), and The Thin Man (1934). However, she retired from acting in the early 1940s after marrying her third husband, Chicago-based millionaire Robert J. Dunham. After his death in 1948, she remarried in 1957 to famed soccer champion and actor, Juan Garchitorena, and remained married until his death in 1983. Moorhead privately died in October 1992 in Montecito, California, at age 91.