Lynne Carver Real name: Virginia Reid Sampson 1916 - 1955

This was written during the 2007 Christmas Season, soon after completing my mandatory, annual viewing of Reginald Owen as Scrooge in A CHRISTMAS CAROL (MGM, 1938) on Turner Classic Movies. In that film, a gal named "Bess" is engaged to Scrooge's nephew, and Bess is played by Lynne Carver, a very pretty lady who can even deliver dialog reasonably well. As I was watching, I recalled that Carver did a few 1940s Monogram westerns with Johnny Mack Brown. Then I wondered "whatever happened to Lynne Carver?"

According to the genealogy website listed at the bottom of this page, Carver was born Virginia Reid Sampson on September 13, 1916 in Douglas, Arizona, and her parents were Reid Johnson Sampson and Maude Fleenor Sampson. There's lots of confusion regarding her birth date and location. The Internet Movie Database has her born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1909. The 1936-1937 Motion Picture Almanac lists Virginia Reid as born in Lexington, Kentucky on 13 September, 1916. Motion Picture Almanacs from the mid 1940s show Lynne Carver's birthplace as Birmingham, Alabama.

Hoping to get more info on Carver, I jotted off an e-mail to the Douglas, Arizona Library. Cindy Hayostek, a professional writer and historical researcher, quickly responded. Cindy writes:

"Virginia Reid Sampson was born in Douglas on September 13, 1916. Her father, Reid Johnson Sampson, was an engineer at the Copper Queen smelter. The Copper Queen was the larger of the two copper smelters in town at the time. Her mother is listed on Virginia's birth certificate as Maud Fleenor, a housewife. Virginia was the second of Maud's children. In the 1917 Douglas City directory, there were two other Sampsons in Douglas. I imagine they are relatives of some sort. In the 1918 Douglas City directory, none of the Sampsons are listed. Virginia may have been born here, but she didn't live here long."

(Note: in a follow-up e-mail to Cindy, I asked her to double-check the spelling on the first name of Carver's Mom - it is Maud with no "e" at the end.)

Her life was short - obituaries note that Lynne Carver Mullaney passed away on August 12, 1955 in New York City at age 38.

Her Hollywood career began around 1934 when she was still a teenager, and she can be seen in films for RKO and as one of many starlets doing musicals as a Goldwyn Girl. In her early film work, she called herself Virginia Reid. By the late 1930s at MGM, she was billed as Lynne Carver and appeared in the Dr. Kildare series, A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1938), THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN (1939) wih Mickey Rooney, more.

Her work in westerns amounted to about a half dozen or so during the 1940s. There was a pair with Roy Rogers: SUNSET ON THE DESERT (Republic, 1942) and MAN FROM CHEYENNE (Republic, 1942). That was followed by a quartet with Johnny Mack Brown: LAW OF THE VALLEY (Monogram, 1944), FLAME OF THE WEST (Monogram, 1945), DRIFTING ALONG (Monogram, 1946) and CROSSED TRAILS (Monogram, 1948). In three of these half dozen, Carver wasn't the heroine/leading lady. In MAN FROM CHEYENNE, Lynne is a baddie, working in cahoots with William Haade and a gang of rustlers. She's a saloon gal in CROSSED TRAILS. And she's background in FLAME OF THE WEST which has Joan Woodbury as the female lead. In the John Wayne IN OLD CALIFORNIA (Republic, 1942), Carver has an unbilled/uncredited bit part, but I've been unable to spot her.

Carver exited films and Hollywood circa late 1940s due to health problems. Excerpts from 1955 newspaper clippings about her passing include: "Aug. 13 Television actress Lynne Carver died in Memorial Hospital last night in New York at the age of 38." and "Aug 13 ... Lynne Carver ... wife of William J. Mullaney of 97 Perry Street, New York City. Funeral from Universal Chapel, 52nd Street and Lexington Avenue."

You may want to take a gander through a variety of newspaper headlines and clippings at the Google news archives at: http://news.google.com/archivesearch
When you get to the search page, enter "Lynne Carver" in the search box (and make sure to enclose her name in quote marks so you get exact matches). On the first page of results, you should see the initial sentences in articles about her August 12, 1955 passing. Then in the search box, enter "lynne carver" +nayfack and you'll find a few headlines about Lynne marrying MGM executive and producer Nicholas Nayfack in Yuma, Arizona in July, 1937 as well as their divorce in May, 1942. Be aware that most of the links provided in the Google news archive go to newspaper websites where you have to pay to retrieve the full article.

  Although some of the data is incomplete or inaccurate, the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) has information on:

                    Lynne Carver: http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0142568/
                    MGM Exec/Producer Nicholas Nayfack (1909-1958): http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0623255/

Jim Tipton's Find A Grave website has a photo of the marker for Lynne Carver Mullaney at Cemetery of the Gate of Heaven, Hawthorne (Westchester County), New York: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=7994449

There's a genealogy website with a page on Lynne Carver, and it shows her real name as Virginia Reid Sampson and born September 13, 1916 in Douglas, Arizona. That webpage has a creation and updated date of 2000. Hopeful that I could get more info on Carver, I scoured the site and found two e-mail addresses for the website owner. Sorry to report that my messages to those two e-mail addresses bounced back as undeliverable. Go to: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~jsmith/ps02/ps02_194.htm

As mentioned, Carver did time as a member of the Goldwyn Girls. There's a clip from the Eddie Cantor KID MILLIONS (Samuel Goldwyn/UA, 1934) on YouTube which features the amazing talents of a young Harold Nicholas (of the Nicholas Brothers). A closeup of a blonde Lynne Carver can be seen at around 1 minute, 30 seconds into this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-LkngVMeOI. And while watching, see if you can spot a young Lucille Ball.

(Image courtesy of Les Adams) Above from L-to-R are Lynne Carver, Johnny Mack Brown and Kathy Frye in a scene from CROSSED TRAILS. (Image courtesy of Les Adams) Above from L-to-R are Doublas Fowley, Lynne Carver, stuntman Ted Mapes (with hat), Steve Clark, Terry Frost (with hat), Johnny Mack Brown, Lynton Brent (partial face), a very old Jack Rockwell (wearing the suit), Tom Quinn and Raymond Hatton in a scene from JMB's DRIFTING ALONG.