Frances Williams was a versatile stage and screen performer best known for her work in the 1930s. Born in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1901, she left home while a teenager and began her performing career as an acrobat. Her singing and dancing skills brought her to New York, where she appeared in George M. Cohan’s show “Mary.”

Her best known films include “Hollywood Party,” “Broadway Through a Keyhole” and “Shoes With Rhythm.” On Broadway, she appeared in George White’s “Scandals of 1928” and “Scandals of 1929,” “Artists and Models,” “Life Begins at 8:40,” and the Marx Brothers’ “The Cocoanuts.”

She died in 1959.

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