Molly O'Day
(10/16/1911 - 10/22/1998)
Born Suzanne Dobson Noonan, she was a freshman in high school when Hal Roach selected her to be in the "Our Gang" comedies.
Was one of 11 children. Her mother, Hannah Kelly, was forced to give up her singing career with the Metropolitan Opera in order to raise her children after her husband, Thomas Francis Noonan, a judge in Bayonne, NJ, died.
She and her two sisters all went into show business. Sister Isabelle retired young. Molly and her other successful actress sister, Virginia (renamed 'Sally O'Neil Keenan') both became "Wampas Baby Stars" -
In order to win the tough girl heroine role in The Patent Leather Kid (1927) she had to compete with 2,000 contenders in an audition.