Gigi Parrish

Gigi Parrish, born Katherine Gertrude McElroy, later known as Katherine Weld (August 30, 1912 – February 8, 2006) was an American film actress.

Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and raised in Hartford, Connecticut, she was the daughter of Irish-Scot immigrants. Her mother died in 1918 at age 33 and she and her brothers and sister were put up for adoption. After adoption by a wealthy family, she and her step-siblings were tutored by author Dillwyn Parrish. Although he was eighteen years her senior, the two fell in love, and at the age of fifteen, she married Dillwyn Parrish. For their honeymoon, she and her husband started out on motorcycles (see photo) from his family's home in Claymont, Delaware, intending to drive across the country to California. However, Gigi Parrish was severely injured in an accident in the Southwestern United States and, once she was physically able, they completed the remainder of the journey via train.

In 1929, she and her husband moved permanently to California, where, a few years later, the beautiful Gigi Parrish was signed to a contract with Samuel Goldwyn's motion picture company, and in 1933 made her film debut in "Roman Scandals." She became one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars and toured the country to promote motion pictures through the Shriners sponsorship, then in 1934 appeared in secondary roles in six more films.

Gigi and Dillwyn Parrish rented a beach house in Laguna Beach, next door to Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher and her husband Alfred Fisher, with whom they became good friends. Her husband fell in love with Mary Fisher at a point when the marriage was already in difficulty, and by the time both couples divorced, Gigi Parrish had already fallen in love with journalist and screenwriter John Weld (1905-2003). After appearing in nine films, she gave up her acting career and married Weld in 1937. From 1949 to 1965 she and her husband were partners in the Laguna Beach Post newspaper.

Living in Dana Point, California, her husband died in 2003 at the age of 98, after 66 years of marriage. Katherine Weld herself died in 2006, aged 93.

External links

• Gigi Parrish at the Internet Movie Database
• Katherine Weld, 1911-2006 in Coastline Pilot