Sarah Padden

Sarah Padden was a character actress in theater and vaudeville from Chicago, Illinois. She performed on stage in the early 20th century. She is noted for her expressive voice and for her psychological studies of the characters she portrayed. Her finest single-act performance was in The Clod, a stage production in which she played an uneducated woman who lived on a farm during the American Civil War. Padden was a featured player on the Orpheum Circuit, Inc.. She had a role in His Grace de Grammont, a romantic comedy by Clyde Fitch which came to the Park Theatre in Boston, Massachusetts in September 1905. The production starred Skinner and was based on the life of a chevalier in the court of Charles II. Padden appeared again with Skinner in a four-act play produced by Charles Frohman, The Honor of the Family, by Emile Fabre, which was presented in New Rochelle, New York in September 1907. Another of her theatrical parts was in Hell-Bent Fer Heaven, a Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Hatcher Hughes. It was performed at the Wilkes Orange Grove Theater (Majestic Theater), 845 South Broadway (Los Angeles), in November 1925. She was also an active screen actress from 1926 to 1958, appearing in 178 films and TV shows. In 1938, she played Ma Thayer in MGM's Rich Man Poor Girl, directed by Reinhold Schunzel and starring Robert Young, Ruth Hussey, and Lana Turner. Bill Harrison (Robert Young) a wealthy young businessman moves in with secretary girlfriend Joan Thayer's (Ruth Hussey) eccentric family to convince her they can make their marriage work. In 1941, she played wealthy spinster Aunt Cassandra ("Cassie") Hildegarde Denham in Murder by Invitation, directed by Phil Rosen and starring Wallace Ford and Marian Marsh. In this "closed room" murder comedy, after they unsuccessfully attempt to have her declared legally insane to gain control of her fortune, her nephews and nieces are invited to a week's visit at her mansion where they are murdered one by one.

Filmography (139 Appearances)

Girl with an Itch

Screaming Mimi

The Kettles in the Ozarks

Prince of Players

Public Defender

Letter to Loretta

The Life Of Riley

The Abbott and Costello Show

Adventures of Superman

Big Jim McLain

Dragnet

Utah Wagon Train

The Missourians

Again Pioneers

The Cisco Kid

A Life of Her Own

Gunslingers

House by the River

The Lone Ranger

Range Justice

Homicide

Frontier Revenge

The Dude Goes West

The Return of the Whistler

Joe Palooka in Fighting Mad

Joe Palooka in the Knockout

Possessed

Love and Learn

Ramrod

Trail Street

That Brennan Girl

Wild West

My Dog Shep

Gentleman Joe Palooka

Angel on My Shoulder

Joe Palooka, Champ

So Goes My Love

Idea Girl

Dakota

Riders of the Dawn

Song of Old Wyoming

Marshal of Laredo

Apology for Murder

Wildfire

The Master Key

Identity Unknown

Ghost Guns

Girl Rush

San Diego I Love You

Casanova Brown

Trail to Gunsight

Summer Storm

Range Law

The Navy Way

So This Is Washington

Family Troubles

Hangmen Also Die!

Assignment in Brittany

Law and Order

Riders of the West

The Pride of the Yankees

Lady in a Jam

The Mad Monster

This Gun for Hire

Heart of the Rio Grande

Wild Bill Hickok Rides

Private Snuffy Smith

The Power of God

The Corsican Brothers

Reg'lar Fellers

Murder by Invitation

A Woman's Face

City of Missing Girls

The Man Who Lost Himself

In Old Colorado

Chad Hanna

Lone Star Raiders

Son of the Navy

Forgotten Girls

I Stole a Million

Should a Girl Marry?

The Zero Hour

Let Freedom Ring

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Off the Record

Little Orphan Annie

Little Tough Guys in Society

Rich Man, Poor Girl

Woman Against Woman

Romance of the Limberlost

Women in Prison

Exiled to Shanghai

Youth on Parole

Anna Karenina

Mad Love

Stranded

The Hoosier Schoolmaster

A Dog of Flanders

When Strangers Meet

The Defense Rests

Tomorrow's Children

He Was Her Man

David Harum

As the Earth Turns

Man of Two Worlds

The Sin of Nora Moran

The Power and the Glory

Ann Vickers

Doctor Bull

The Important Witness

Pilgrimage

Face in the Sky

Rasputin and the Empress

Tess of the Storm Country

Women Won't Tell

Wild Girl

Kongo

Grand Hotel

Blondie of the Follies

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm

Red-Headed Woman

The Midnight Lady

Young America

Cross-Examination

Mata Hari

The Yellow Ticket

Sob Sister

Bad Girl

The Great Meadow

Today

Billy the Kid

Hide-Out

Trifles

The Sophomore

Wonder of Women

Companionate Marriage

The Bugle Call

The Woman Who Did Not Care

Obey the Law

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