| Frances Howard | |
| Birth Name: | Frances Howard McLaughlin |
| Birth Date: | 4 June 1903 |
| Birth Place: | Omaha, Nebraska, U.S. |
| Death Place: | Beverly Hills, California, U.S. |
| Resting Place: | Forest Lawn Memorial Park |
| Occupation: | Actress |
| Years Active: | 1925–1935 |
| Children: | Samuel Goldwyn Jr. |
| Relatives: |
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Frances Howard Goldwyn (née McLaughlin; June 4, 1903 – July 2, 1976) was an American actress. She was the second wife of producer Samuel Goldwyn, and the paternal grandmother of actors Tony and John Goldwyn.
Frances Howard McLaughlin[1] was born in Kansas City, Kansas or Omaha, Nebraska in 1903[2] to Helen Victoria (née Howard) and Charles Douglas McLaughlin.[3] She was raised as a Catholic. Her mother, nicknamed Bonnie, had been raised a Quaker but converted to Catholicism, and she predeceased her daughter by five years. Her father was reportedly a grandson of Irish nationalist politician Daniel O'Connell. Howard had two sisters and a brother.[3]
Howard began her professional career at age 16 with a stock theater company.[4] When she was 21, Howard portrayed a flapper on Broadway in The Intimate Strangers.[5] She followed that part with another flapper role in The Best People. Paramount signed her to a five-year contract, and she co-starred in the film The Swan. She also appeared in Too Many Kisses (1925).[6] She had the contract canceled when she decided to marry.
Howard married Samuel Goldwyn, more than two decades her senior, on April 23, 1925.[7] They remained married until Goldwyn's death on January 31, 1974. They had one son, Samuel Goldwyn Jr..[8]
On July 2, 1976,[9] at the age of 73, Howard died in Beverly Hills, California more than a year after being diagnosed with advanced cancer, for which she refused treatment which would have required invasive and disfiguring surgery.[3] She was funeralized at Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills and interred next to her husband at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale.[10] [11]
Howard made four films from 1925 to 1935:
The Hollywood Branch Library in the Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles is named for Howard, and it acts as an archival repository for many film collections.[12] [13] The library was funded by The Samuel Goldwyn Foundation in 1982 after the previous building was destroyed by arson.