Marilyn Harris (actor)

Marilyn Harris (1924 – 1999) was an American child actor in several Hollywood productions of the 1930s. She will always be best remembered for her role as 'Little Maria' in the classic horror film "Frankenstein" (1931). In arguably the film's most memorable scene, she meets the fugitive monster (played by Boris Karloff) beside a riverbank and charms the monster with her innocence, humanity and friendship, something which he had not experienced with previously hostile, mistrusting adults. A children's game is however tragically misinterpreted by the monster, and he ends up throwing Little Maria into the river, drowning her and turning the surrounding village's population into a lynch mob, baying for revenge after the child's body is found. The shot of Maria being thrown into the water was cut from original prints and only restored in the 1980s.

Miss Harris later played teenage roles in a handful of films in the 1940s before leaving the profession; she died from cancer and heart failure.

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