Other meanings of Lola Lane
Actors
Lola Lane (born Dorothy May Lane, May 21, 1906 – June 22, 1981) was an American actress and singer, one of the four Lane sisters who achieved fame in Hollywood during the 1930s and 1940s. She appeared in more than 40 films, often in supporting roles as tough or worldly women, and is best remembered for her performances in Marked Woman (1937) and Four Daughters (1938).
Lola Lane was born Dorothy May Lane in Macy, Indiana, to William Henry Lane and Lillian (née Lieber) Lane. She was the second of four daughters; her sisters were Leota, Rosemary, and Priscilla. The family moved to Indianapolis, where the girls were encouraged to perform from an early age. Lola began her career in vaudeville and musical comedy, making her Broadway debut in the chorus of Bye, Bye, Bonnie (1927). She soon gained attention for her singing and dancing, and by the late 1920s she was a featured performer in several stage productions.
Lola Lane entered films in 1929 with Speakeasy, a crime drama that capitalized on her stage experience. She worked steadily through the early 1930s, often in B-movies and serials, but her breakthrough came with Marked Woman (1937), where she played a nightclub hostess opposite Bette Davis. The following year she appeared in Four Daughters (1938), a family drama that also featured her sisters Rosemary and Priscilla; the film was a major hit and spawned two sequels. Lola's other notable credits include The Last Warning (1929), Murder on the Campus (1933), and Torchy Blane in Panama (1938). She retired from acting in the mid-1940s.
After leaving Hollywood, Lola Lane married three times, including a brief marriage to actor Lew Ayres. She settled in California and largely withdrew from public life. She died of a heart attack in Santa Barbara, California, in 1981. Although she never achieved the stardom of her sister Priscilla, Lola is remembered as a versatile character actress who brought a distinctive edge to her roles. Her performances in pre-Code films have been rediscovered by classic-film enthusiasts, and she is often cited as an example of the talented but underappreciated supporting players of Hollywood's Golden Age.
Lola Lane was the only one of the four sisters to have a substantial career as a singer, and she recorded several songs for the Victor label in the late 1920s. She was also the first of the sisters to appear in a talking picture, and she appeared in an early television broadcast in 1931, a demonstration of the Farnsworth system. In addition, she was a licensed pilot and an avid golfer. Her final film role was in I Love a Soldier (1944), after which she turned down offers to return to the screen, preferring to focus on her personal life.
Lola Lane is often confused with her sister Leota Lane, who also acted briefly, but Lola was the more prolific of the two.
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