Marcia Mae Jones; Actress Appeared In 'These Three,' Shirley Temple Films

Marcia Mae Jones, shown in 1948, appeared in about 50 films. Her movie career began when she was an infant and peaked with several children's and teen roles in the 1930s and '40s. (Los Angeles Times)

Marcia Mae Jones, 83, a child actress of the 1930s who twice appeared on-screen with Shirley Temple and gave a riveting performance as a bullied pupil in "These Three," died Sept. 2 at the Motion Picture & Television Fund retirement community in Woodland Hills, Calif. She had pneumonia.

Unlike Temple, Judy Garland and Deanna Durbin, Ms. Jones never reached the front rank of girl stars. She was also not among the second tier with Bonita Granville, Anne Shirley and Jane Withers. Yet Ms. Jones appeared in about 50 movies after making her debut as an infant in 1926 and appeared with some of the biggest stars of the day.

Many film critics placed her among the great movie finds of 1936 for "These Three," based on Lillian Hellman's drama "The Children's Hour," about two female teachers whose lives are ruined by a lying student. Granville played the girl who slanders her teachers, and Ms. Jones was her frail and submissive playmate.

After a decade of small parts, Ms. Jones was suddenly fast-tracked in key secondary roles to test her appeal. She made a good impression on audiences as the crippled Klara in "Heidi" (1937) and as a bratty rival in "The Little Princess" (1939), both of which starred Temple.

Without risk of being overshadowed by Temple, Ms. Jones held out hope that her breakthrough would come in "Mountain Justice" (1937), based on the notorious Edith Maxwell murder case in Wise County, Va. Ms. Jones played an Appalachian youngster whose brutal father tries to marry her off to a man twice her age. Josephine Hutchinson, playing her older sister, accidentally kills their father.

New York Times critic Frank S. Nugent found the "hillbilly" film "tol'able" but little more. On a personal note, Ms. Jones was disappointed that director Michael Curtiz "always called me Garcia because he couldn't say Marcia."

Ms. Jones was born Aug. 1, 1924, in Los Angeles, where her father was a telegraph operator for the Los Angeles Times. She said her mother, a movie bit player, relentlessly pushed her children into acting.

Ms. Jones debuted in the silent film "Mannequin" (1926), playing star Dolores Costello's role as a baby. During the next decade, she had small roles in dramas, comedies and musicals. She was Jackie Cooper's little sister in "The Champ" (1931) and a wedding flower girl in "Bombshell" (1933), a Hollywood satire starring Jean Harlow.

In "Night Nurse" (1931), a hospital drama with Barbara Stanwyck and Clark Gable, she played a young patient given a milk bath. On the set, Ms. Jones appeared uncooperative because she kept hesitating as the director repeatedly ordered her to sit in the tub.

"Well, finally they found out that they had the heater heating the milk bath turned too high, and so no wonder I kept getting up," she told Classic Images magazine 2001. "I was being boiled in milk."

She played second fiddle to young opera star Deanna Durbin in "First Love" (1939) and "Nice Girl?" (1941), and in "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" (1938) portrayed the title character's sullen cousin Mary after having lost the role of love interest Becky Thatcher.

Starting in the early 1940s, Ms. Jones advanced to starring roles in cheaply made teen melodramas with Frankie Darro and Jackie Moran.

She also was one of the suspects accused of killing a sorority sister in "Nine Girls," and saved her older sister, played by Jean Parker, from capital punishment in "Lady in the Death House."

A movie Ms. Jones long tried to live down was " Street Corner" (1948), a drama about impulsive young love on prom night and back-alley abortions. She said that the script was "very good" but that the marketing appalled her. She told Classic Images: "They had me leaning against a lamppost looking like a hooker."

She had guest roles on television, appeared in commercials and became a switchboard operator for noted show-business lawyer Greg Bautzer. She also spoke about her struggles with alcohol.

Her marriages to Robert Chic and television scriptwriter Bill Davenport ended in divorce.

Survivors include two sons from her first marriage; a brother; and two grandchildren.