Joyce Coad (April 14, 1917 - May 3, 1987) was a child actress in motion pictures from Wyoming.
Child prodigy
Coad was the survivor of triplets whose parents died shortly after she was born. She was adopted by a childless couple and taken to Los Angeles, California. By the age of five she became a reader of children's stories on radio KHJ-AM in Los Angeles with the Beacon Light Company. It was commented that Coad's genius was first observed when she began to commit to memory songs, speeches, and music she heard over the radio.
Film actress
Coad's good fortune was moving to Los Angeles at the same time that Metro Goldwyn Mayer was searching for a million dollar baby. She won a contest conducted by a local newspaper and was brought to Hollywood to play the leading role in Hearts In Dixie. She was selected from among one thousand youngsters to play a part in The Devil's Circus (1926). Directed by J. Leo Meehan, Coad played the role of Little Anita. She performed the role of Pearl in The Scarlet Letter (1926), a film which featured Lillian Gish. Louis B. Mayer chose Victor Seastrom to direct the movie. He proved a fine choice because of his attentiveness to characterization. Drums of Love (1928), directed by D.W. Griffith, is set in the middle of the nineteenth century in South America. Coad appeared in the role of the little sister in a screen production which starred Lionel Barrymore, Don Alvarado, and Tully Marshall. The number of her film appearances declined after 1931. She played the role of Elsa The German Milkmaid in Captured (1933). In June 1937 Coad was cast in The Deerslayer, which was being filmed by Standard Pictures. She was twenty years old. Joyce Coad died in California in 1987.
References
- "New Voices On Air", Los Angeles Times, October 19, 1924, p. B8.
- "Child Prodigy Given Place in Picture Cast", Los Angeles Times, November 29, 1925, p. C29.
- "Film to Start", Los Angeles Times, June 7, 1937, p. A16.
- "Orphan Adopted in Wyoming Turns Out To Be Screens' Million Dollar Child", Middletown Daily Times-Press, May 8, 1926, p. 10.
- "A Nathaniel Hawthorne Classic", New York Times, August 10,1926, p. 19.
- "Screen Notes date=November 21, 1926", New York Times, p. X5.
- "Paolo and Francesca", New York Times, January 25, 1928, p. 20.
- "At Syracuse Theaters", Syracuse Herald, January 20, 1932, p. 10.
