Biography
Pixieish stage and screen soubrette Queenie Smith was a Broadway favorite in the 1920s, most notably as star of the 1925
George Gershwin musical Tip Toes (1925). She came to films in the mid-1930s, playing virtually the same role in two period musicals, the 1935
Bing Crosby/W.C. Fields concoction
Mississippi and the 1936 version of
Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein's
Show Boat. As her youthful rambunctiousness matured into middle-aged feistiness, Queenie was seen in dozens of tiny roles, usually cast as a nosy neighbor, landlady, housekeeper or (in later years) retirement-home resident. In 1970, she and nonagenarian actor
Burt Mustin were teamed as a long-married couple on the TV comedy-sketch series The Funny Side. One of the last and best of Queenie Smith's film roles was the scatological scrabble player in the 1978
Goldie Hawn-
Chevy Chase vehicle
Foul Play (1978). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide