Mary Carlisle (born February 3, 1914) is a retired American actress, singer and dancer. Born in Los Angeles, California, she starred in several B movie-grade Hollywood films in the 1930s, having been one of fifteen girls selected as "WAMPAS Baby Stars" in 1932. She became a centenarian in 2014.

Biography

Career
Mary Carlisle was born as Gwendoly L. Witter on February 3, 1914 in Back Bay, Boston. Her mother was Leona Ella Witter (nee Wotten) .
Being born into a religious family, she was educated in a convent in Boston. Her father died when she was four years old. Leona Witter later remarried, to industrialist Henry J. Kaiser. Carlisle and her mother then relocated to Los Angeles, where her uncle lived. He gave her the opportunity to appear in the Jackie Coogan vehicle Long Live the King in 1923. She was uncredited.

Carlisle was discovered by studio executive Carl Laemmle, Jr. at the age of 14 when she was eating lunch with her mother at the Universal Studios commissionary. Carlisle , a petite 5 feet tall, with ash blonde hair, dimples and big round blue eyes, was praised for her angelic looks, and Laemmle offered her a screen test. Though she passed the test and started doing extra work at Universal, she was stopped by a welfare officer who noted that she was underaged and had to finish school first.

After completing her education two years later, she headed to the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio for work in movies. The casting director asked if she could dance; when she replied that she could, he arranged for an audition to take place two days later. Carlisle, who had lied about her good dancing abilities, took a one-day basic tap dancing lesson. She signed a one-year contract with MGM in 1930 and was used as a back-up dancer.

In the beginning of her movie career, she had small parts in movies such as Madam Satan and Passion Flower. She also had a role in Grand Hotel in 1932. She gained recognition when she was selected as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars (young actresses believed to be on their way to stardom) in 1932. Her major acting break came when Paramount Studios loaned her for the movie College Humor, where she played opposite Bing Crosby. The performance was critically acclaimed and she later went on making two more movies with him: Double or Nothing and Doctor Rhythm. She continued working for different studios, mainly in B-movies as a leading lady.