| Enid Markey | |
| Birth Date: | 22 February 1894 |
| Birth Place: | Dillon, Colorado |
| Death Place: | Bay Shore, New York City, U.S. |
| Occupation: | Actress |
| Years Active: | 1911–1968 |
Enid Markey (February 22, 1894 - November 15, 1981) was an American theatre, film, radio, and television actress, whose career spanned over 50 years, extending from the early 1900s to the late 1960s. In movies, she was the first performer to portray the fictional character Jane, Tarzan's "jungle" companion and later his wife. Markey performed as Jane twice in 1918, costarring with Elmo Lincoln in the films Tarzan of The Apes and The Romance of Tarzan.[1]
Markey was born in Dillon, Colorado. Her education came in boarding school in Denver.[2]
Markey acted on stage and in vaudeville before turning to movies.[2] Her first film role was in The Fortunes of War (1911). During the production of The Wrath of the Gods (1914), Markey, a "leading lady with the New York Motion Picture Company", was "badly injured" during the production.[3] During her scene in which the lava flow destroys the village, she was surrounded by smoke and fumes, and was nearly asphyxiated, but had recovered by May 1914.[4]
After Markey made the first two Tarzan films, she turned to acting on stage, saying "I really wanted to learn how to act." She acted in 29 Broadway plays, beginning with Up in Mabel's Room (1919) and ending with What Did We Do Wrong? (1967).[5]
During the 1950s and 1960s, she appeared in several television series including Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet and The Defenders.
In 1963, she guest-starred as Mrs. Mendelbright, Barney Fife's landlady on The Andy Griffith Show in the episode "Up in Barney's Room." Later, in 1966, she appeared as Grandma Pyle on Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. in the episode "Grandma Pyle: Fortune Teller." She also had two appearances in The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.
In the 1960-1961 season, Markey had a regular role as Aunt Violet Flower in the sitcom Bringing Up Buddy, co-starring Frank Aletter and Doro Merande. Markey and Merande played spinster aunts who provide a home for their bachelor nephew, stockbroker Buddy Flower, played by Aletter.[6]
Her last appearance was in The Boston Strangler (1968).
Markey married American Can Company executive George W. Cobb in 1942. He died in 1948.
While visiting friends in Long Island, New York on November 13, 1981, Markey suffered a heart attack and was admitted to South Side Hospital in Bay Shore, New York, where she died two days later at age 87.[1] [7]