WHITING’S FIRST BROADWAY AND HOLLYWOOD STAR???

Frank Vargo January 2022

While researching information about “famous people” born in Whiting on Wikipedia, I discovered the name ”Irene Purcell” listed as having been born on August 7, 1896, in Whiting, Indiana. She was an American film and stage actress in the late 1920s and 1930s.

Since the new exhibit (which begins on February 13th) at our Whiting/Robertsdale Historical Museum will feature stories about women who were born or lived in Whiting that accomplished notable things during their lifetime, I thought Irene Purcell would be a good candidate for our list. Further research however proved rather disappointing as far as Irene’s relationship with Whiting.

Problems arose when I began comparing the information on Wikipedia with that found on the Ancestry.com website. Irene Purcell was listed as being born in Hammond, Lake County, Indiana. Her parents were James J. Purcell from Ohio and his wife Minnie Shields Purcell who was born in Canada. Irene was baptized on August 30, 1896, in East Chicago, Indiana, according to the Ancestry website.

No address was found for a Purcell family living in Whiting at the time of Irene’s birth. How did a man from Ohio and his wife from Canada end up in Whiting, Indiana? Was James Purcell working at the new Standard Oil Company? Was the family just passing through Lake County and not permanent residents? The Purcell’s eventually moved to Wisconsin and the 1910 Federal Census lists them as living in Racine, Wisconsin. It also shows that Irene was born in Illinois, not Indiana. The census also lists her age in 1910 as 12, which would have her born in 1898, not 1896.

For anyone working on their family history, such discrepancies are common. Some information that you might find contradicts information from another source. Which source is correct? For my research for this article, these conflicting bits of information might have been the end of my story. If she was not born or lived in Whiting, there might have been no need to tell her story. But since Irene Mary Purcell had lived such an interesting life, and since she might have been from Whiting, I decided to go ahead and tell the rest of her story. From Whiting (?) to Wisconsin, to Broadway, to Hollywood, and back to Wisconsin, here is her story.

Irene had her start in show business on the Broadway stage during the late 1920s. She appeared mainly in comedies, many of the romantic type. Her early appearances were in The Ladder (1926), The Great Necker (1928), Cross Roads (1929), The First Apple (1933) and A Good Woman, Poor Thing (1933). None of these plays were very memorable, but successes none the less during their time.

Miss Purcell then moved on to the big screen starting in 1931 with MGM’s Just a Gigolo. She starred opposite William Haines in this MGM romantic comedy in her film debut.

Her natural beauty and fine sense of humor earned her another starring role also in 1931. Irene played the female lead in a new romantic comedy, The Man in Possession. Her co-stars were Reginald Owen (who later played Scrooge in the 1938 version of Dickens A Christmas Carol ) and Robert Montgomery. In 1932, Purcell starred with Jimmy Durante and Buster Keaton in the comedy A Passionate Plumber. She appeared in smaller roles in other 1930s films and ended the decade by touring Australia as the star of the all-female play The Women in 1938 and 1939.

It was in Australia that Irene met her future husband, Herbert Fisk Johnson Jr. in 1938. They started dating and eventually became engaged. On October 4, 1941, Irene married Herbert Fisk Johnson at his apartment in Chicago. The couple moved to Wisconsin and lived at the Johnson estate, Wingspread, which was designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Irene Mary Purcell, maybe the girl from little Whiting, Indiana, gave up her acting career for the love of the son of the president of the S.C. Johnson & Son company. The S.C. Johnson Company still is a major manufacturer of wax products today under the name Johnson & Johnson.

Being married to a millionaire became more important and financially rewarding than the bright lights of Broadway and the films of Hollywood. Irene became the step-mother to the three Johnson children from Herbert’s earlier marriage. She remained married to Herbert until her death in 1972.

After settling into her new life, Irene turned her attention to her place in society. She served on the board of directors of many organizations in the business, educational and non-profit areas. She became an adviser to the Johnson Foundation, a trustee of Ripon College in Racine and a member of the Wisconsin Governor’s Council on the Arts. She appeared on the social pages of newspapers across the country for her charitable work. Her death on July 9, 1972, merited an article in The New York Times detailing her major accomplishments. The Times article said that Irene was 70 years old while other sources, including Wikipedia, claimed she was aged 75.

So when searching for information about your family genealogy or just looking for information about your favorite movie star or television character, realize that there may be conflicting information and stories on different sites and you may end up having to settle for more than one version of what might be the “truth.”