The memories are vague when it comes to recalling this Londonborn leading lady but Muriel Angelus did have her moments She managed to appear in a few classic Broadway musical shows and Hollywood films before her early retirement in the mid1940s Of Scottish parentage the former Muriel Findlay developed a sweetvoiced soprano at an early age She made her singing debut at 12 eventually changing her name and becoming a popular music hall performer She entered films toward the end of the silent era with The Ringer 1928 the first of three movie versions of the Edgar Wallace play Her second film Sailor Dont Care 1928 was important only in that she met her first husband Scotsborn actor John Stuart Her part was excised from the film Though in her first sound picture Night Birds 1930 she got to sing a number most of her films did not usurp her musical talents The sweetnatured actress who played both ingenues and other woman roles costarred with husband Stuart in No Exit 1930 Eves Fall 1930 and Hindle Wakes 1931 and appeared with British star Monty Banks in some of his farcical comedies including My Wifes Family 1932 and So You Wont Talk 1935 Muriel received a career lift with the glossy musical London hit Balalaika and a chain of events happened with its success It led to her securing the pivotal role of Adriana in The Boys From Syracuse and in turn a contract with Paramount Pictures Divorced from Stuart by this time Muriel settled in Hollywood and made her best films while there She was touching as girlfriend to blind painter Ronald Colman in The Light That Failed 1939 a second remake of the Rudyard Kipling novel and appeared to great advantage in Preston Sturges classic satire The Great McGinty 1940 as Brian Donlevys secretary After scoring another longrunning Broadway hit with Early To Bed in 1943 Muriel met Radio City Music Hall orchestra conductor Paul Lavalle while appearing on radio in New York and married him in 1946 She retired to raise a family in New England They had a daughter Suzanne who later worked for NBC Muriel pretty much stayed out of the limelight for the remainder of her life She died at 95 in a Virginia nursing home in 2004 some seven years after her husbands death
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