Nora Lane

Nora Lane was an American actress whose career spanned the transition from silent films to talkies. She was born Nora Bennett Schilling in Chester, Illinois, and grew up near St. Louis, where she attended school. After working as a model, she visited a friend in California and caught the attention of someone in the film industry. She passed her screen test and began playing small parts in silent films in 1927, adopting the stage name Lane.

Over a 17-year career, she appeared in more than 80 films. Her notable roles include Zerelda in Jesse James (1927), Sally in The Cisco Kid (1931), and the villainous Goldie in Western Frontier (1935). She also had a supporting part in Jimmy the Gent (1934), starring James Cagney and Bette Davis. In four Hopalong Cassidy films, she was twice cast as Nora Blake, a widowed ranch owner. She was an excellent swimmer and won many awards for the sport.

In August 1931, she was involved in a train crash near Yuma, Arizona, along with actors Warner Baxter and Edmund Lowe, but escaped uninjured. In 1941 she married Burdette Henney, and she retired from movies in 1944. The couple enjoyed a happy marriage until September 1948, when Burdette died of a heart attack during a fishing trip in Bishop, California. Exactly one month later, on October 16, 1948, the grief-stricken Nora took her own life, leaving a note to her step-son saying she could not go on without him. She was 43 years old.