- Miriam Seegar
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Miriam Seegar Born September 1, 1907
Greentown, Indiana, U.S.Died January 2, 2011 (aged 103)
Pasadena, California, U.S.Occupation Film actress Years active 1928-33 Spouse Tim Whelan
(1931-1957) (his death)Miriam Seegar Whelan (September 1, 1907 – January 2, 2011), was an American silent film actress.
Born in Greentown, Indiana, Her parents were teachers. She was one of four daughters. Her father later opened up a hardware store but died when Miriam was 14. The third of four talented sisters: Dr. Helen Seegar Stone (1895-1976) (educator); Dorothy Seegar (Broadway and opera singer); and the youngest Sara Seegar Stone (1914-1990) (stage, film and TV character actress). She made her film debut in 1928. Her first film was The Price of Divorce, in which she starred alongside Frances Day and Rex Maurice. The film was never released, but was adapted for sound and released two years later as Such Is the Law. She followed that with a lead role in The Valley of Ghosts the same year. She starred in four films in 1929 and six films in 1930, including New Movietone Follies of 1930 and The Dawn Trail opposite Western film star Buck Jones. In 1931 and 1932, she made a total of six films, all B-movies, and retired from acting in 1933, after which she married and had children, later finding employment as an interior decorator. She and director/husband had two sons. Tim Jr. and Michael, the latter born with Down's Syndrome. Her husband died in 1957 and, tragically, both sons died within a span of nine months later on. She had 2 grandchildren and 4 great-grandchildren at the time of her death.
In 2000, Seegar appeared in the documentary I Used to Be in Pictures, which featured commentary from many of her contemporaries. Seegar died on January 2, 2011, according to her daughter-in-law Harriet Whelan. No cause of death was given, Whelan merely stating that she died from "age-related causes". She was 103 years old. Her death in January 2011 and the death of Barbara Kent in October of that year left, aside from child performers such as Mickey Rooney and Baby Peggy, only Frederica Sagor Maas (adult silent screen writer) as a silent film veteran still alive as of late 2011.
External links
- Miriam Seegar at the Internet Movie Database
- Miriam Seegar at AllRovi
- Obituary - Los Angeles Times
- Miriam Seegar at Find a Grave
Categories:- American centenarians
- Actors from Indiana
- American silent film actors
- American film actors
- 1907 births
- 2011 deaths
- People from Howard County, Indiana
- American film actor, 1900s birth stubs
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