Nola Luxford
Nola Luxford (23 December 1895 – 10 October 1994) was a New Zealand-born film actress, spanning from the silent film era to the 1930s. During the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, she provided a daily radio programme for audiences in Australia and New Zealand.
Born Adelaide Minola Pratt in Hunterville, New Zealand,[1] Luxford relocated to Hollywood to pursue a career in film acting. Her first film appearance was in the 1920 film The Tiger's Coat. From 1920 through 1927 she would appear in thirteen films, starring opposite and alongside such actors as Bill Cody, Jack Holt, and Carmel Myers. In 1927 she married William Bauernschmidt, and did no acting for the next five years.
In 1932 she gave a daily one-hour radio report on the Olympics at Los Angeles for New Zealand and Australia, relayed "down under" by short-wave radio.[2]
She had six film appearances from 1932 to 1935, with the only credited ones of any notability being The Iron Master starring Reginald Denny, and Lost in Limehouse, starring Laura La Plante, and both being in 1933. She retired after 1935, and settled in Pasadena, California.
She founded the Anzac Club of New York, and through her wartime radio broadcasts she became known as the "Angel of the Anzacs".
Her first husband died, and she divorced her second husband. She married her third husband, Glenn Russell Dolberg, in 1959. She continued to live in Pasadena, where she was residing at the time of her death on 10 October 1994.
Further reading
- Carole Van Grondelle, Angel of the Anzacs, Victoria University Press
References
- ^ van Grondelle, Carole. "Luxford, Nola". Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Ministry for Culture and Heritage. Retrieved 20 October 2015.
- ^ Our Olympic Century (page 49) by Joseph Romanos (2008, Trio Books, Wellington) ISBN 978-0-9582839-3-9