caption resting_place death_date death_place years_active birth_place children image_size name birth_date spouse image article_title birth_name occupation death_cause
in '' convention city '' , 1933 holy cross cemetery , culver city , california 25 september 1987 woodland hills , california , u.s. 1920 -- 64 quincy , illinois , u.s. marylyn campo -lrb- b. 1939 -rrb- hauoli thorpe -lrb- b. 1932 -rrb- anthony del 250 mary astor 03 may 1906 kenneth -rrb- franklin thorpe -lrb- m. 1931 -- 35 ; divorced hawks -rrb- manuel del campo -lrb- m. 1936 -- 41 ; -lrb- divorced -rrb- thomas gordon wheelock -lrb- m. 1945 -- 55 m. ; divorced -rrb- 1928 -- 30 ; widowed mary astor-1930s . jpg mary astor
 lucile vasconcellos langhanke actress respiratory failure
mary astor

mary astor -lrb- born lucile vasconcellos langhanke ; may 3 , 1906 -- september 25 , 1987 -rrb- was an american actress .
best remembered for her role as brigid o'shaughnessy in `` the maltese falcon '' -lrb- 1941 -rrb- , astor began her long motion picture career as a teenager in the silent movies of the early 1920s .
she eventually transitioned to talkies , but nearly saw her career destroyed due to public scandal in the mid-1930s .
she was sued for support by her parents and was later branded an adulterous wife by her ex-husband in a custody fight over her daughter .
overcoming these stumbling blocks in her private life , astor went on to greater success on screen , eventually winning an academy award for best supporting actress for her performance in `` the great lie '' -lrb- 1941 -rrb- .
she was a metro-goldwyn-mayer contract player through most of the 1940s and continued to work in film , on television and on stage until her retirement in 1964 .
astor was the author of five novels .
her autobiography was a bestseller , as was her later book , `` a life on film '' , which was specifically about her career .
director lindsay anderson wrote of her in 1990 : `` that when two or three who love the cinema are gathered together , the name of mary astor always comes up , and everybody agrees that she was an actress of special attraction , whose qualities of depth and reality always seemed to illuminate the parts she played . ''
