Marvel Rea

Marvel Rea was born in 1901, the same year she began her film career, and died by suicide at age 35 in 1937. She was an American actress, blonde-haired with hazel eyes, and slim. Her career spanned from 1917 to 1921, during which she appeared in over thirty films, including Her Screen Idol and The Summer Girls, as a Mack Sennett bathing beauty. She started acting around age 15 and retired in 1921, with her final role in the short film For Land's Sake.

Marvel married banker Henry Page Wells in 1918, but the marriage was short-lived due to his drug addiction, and they divorced within a year. In 1936, she married Edwin J. Wilkinson, but tragedy struck when she was kidnapped and assaulted by three men in September of that year. She testified at the resulting trial, but she never fully recovered from the trauma. She died on June 17, 1937, from ingesting ant poison. She is buried at Pacific Crest Cemetery in Redondo Beach, California.