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Cora Sue Collins, who as a dimpled, chubby-cheeked child actress in the early 1930s appeared opposite A-list stars like Greta Garbo, Myrna Loy and Merle Oberon, but who cut her career short after being sexually harassed by a screenwriter, died on April 27 at her home in Beverly Hills, Calif. She was 98.<\/p>\n
Her daughter, Susie McKay Krieser, said the cause was complications of a stroke.<\/p>\n
Miss Collins made about 50 pictures over 13 years, including 11 in 1934 and another 11 in 1935. She was one of the era\u2019s galaxy of child stars, a list that included Shirley Temple, Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, but she did not become as famous as they did. <\/p>\n
In her first movie, the 1932 comedy \u201cThe Unexpected Father,\u201d she played a waif whose newly wealthy adoptive father (Slim Summerville) hires a nurse (ZaSu Pitts) to care for her. Praise for 4-year-old Cora Sue came quickly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
A critic for The Richmond News Leader in Virginia labeled her a \u201cbaby star\u201d with \u201camazing acting ability and an appeal that walks right into your heart.\u201d The Kansas City Journal wrote, \u201cThe little Collins girl walks away with the picture.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Miss Collins played Garbo as a child in \u201cQueen Christina,\u201d the acclaimed 1933 movie about the Swedish monarch. At the time, she told one newspaper that Garbo \u201c was so friendly and liked my new teeth a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her many other roles include the daughter of Claudette Colbert in \u201cTorch Song\u201d (1933); Myrna Loy and William Powell\u2019s daughter in \u201cEvelyn Prentice\u201d (1934); and the younger selves of Norma Shearer in \u201cSmilin\u2019 Through\u201d (1932), Frances Dee in \u201cThe Strange Case of Clara Deane\u201d (1932) and Ms. Oberon in \u201cThe Dark Angel\u201d (1935).<\/p>\n
\u201cI must have had a very common face,\u201d Miss Collins said in a 2014 interview<\/a> with the online journal Film Talk. She added: \u201cI played everybody as a child. I guess they could make me up to look like anyone. Yet I hope they weren\u2019t paying me for nothing. Movies were incredibly magical to me back then.\u201d<\/p>\n She developed a friendship with <\/span>Garbo, which began on the set of \u201cQueen Christina,\u201d continued when Miss Collins was cast as her niece in \u201cAnna Karenina\u201d (1935), and lasted through her visits as an adult to Garbo\u2019s homes in New York and Paris.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cUntil she passed away, I called her Miss Garbo and she called me Cora Sue, which was correct,\u201d Miss Collins told Film Talk. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Cora Sue Collins was born on April 19, 1927, in Beckley, W.Va. Her father, Young Commodore Collins, and her mother, Clyde (Richardson) Collins, separated when Cora Sue was 3 (after her mother discovered that her father had given his secretary a mink coat for Christmas) and later divorced. Her mother took Cora Sue and her older sister, Madge, to Hollywood by train.<\/p>\n In a story that Miss Collins called \u201cthe honest-to-God truth,\u201d she <\/span>said that her mother and sister were heading to register her sister in school when a huge car pulled up to them.<\/p>\n \u201cA woman jumped out of the car and said, \u2018Excuse me, would you like to put your little girl in pictures?\u2019\u201d she said in an interview with the website Cinephiled <\/a>in 2015. \u201cOf course, my mother said, \u2018Yes!\u2019 The woman said, \u2018Get in the car with me, there\u2019s a big casting going on right now at Universal.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n They delayed going to the studio for a few hours until Madge had been enrolled. Miss Collins was cast in \u201cThe Unexpected Father.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n A 1935 profile of Miss Collins in The Oakland Tribune reported that she had a 151 I.Q. and that she had been voted the most popular Hollywood child actor by her peers. The author of the profile, Marion Simms, was with the Collinses one morning when the actor Pat O\u2019Brien, who had become Cora Sue\u2019s friend and whom she called \u201cUncle Pat,\u201d stopped by to take her to school.<\/p>\n Miss Collins also worked with James Cagney in \u201cPicture Snatcher\u201d (1933), Bette Davis in \u201cAll This, and Heaven Too\u201d (1940), Colleen Moore in \u201cThe Scarlet Letter\u201d (1934) and Sylvia Sidney in \u201cJennie Gerhardt\u201d (1933).<\/p>\n As Miss Collins aged, her roles dwindled. Before her 17th birthday, she said, she was a victim of harassment when Harry Ruskin, a screenwriter at MGM whom she viewed as a father figure, offered her a big role if she would sleep with him. She turned him down, started to cry and left his office.<\/p>\n