- Born
- Died
- Nickname
- Christine MacIntyre
- Height5′ 3″ (1.60 m)
- One of five children, Christine Cecilia McIntyre was born in Nogales, Arizona, on April 26, 1911, to John and Edna (nee Barnaby) McIntyre. In the early 1930s, Christine received a Bachelor of Music degree at Chicago Musical College, where she honed her operatic soprano voice (which can be heard in a handful of her movies); she also began her radio career in Chicago. By 1936, she was acting on the professional stage in L.A., starring in plays such as "The Bird of Paradise" with actors like Pierce Lyden. She broke into movies with a small role in Swing Fever (1937), signing for feature films with RKO. This led to a series of B westerns with stars like Buck Jones, Johnny Mack Brown, and Ray Corrigan. Then, in 1944, with her hair newly dyed blonde, she was discovered by producer Hugh McCollum at Columbia Pictures and signed a ten-year contract to do shorts for the studio. Over the next decade, she worked with comedians such as Andy Clyde, Hugh Herbert, and Shemp Howard (solo), not to mention both Joe Besser and Joe DeRita. However, she will forever be remembered for her prolific work with The Three Stooges. A favorite concert piece of hers, Johann Strauss' "Voice of Spring," was the basis for the 1945 Stooges short Micro-Phonies (1945), considered by many Stooge fans as the trio's finest effort and which also provides the best example of Christine's beautifully pure operatic soprano voice as she sings the above-mentioned aria (which Curly Howard, as "Senorita Cucaracha," hilariously lip-synchs to). Always focused, always a presence onscreen, Christine developed into a first-rate comedic actress--her timing was impeccable and she wasn't afraid to get "down and dirty" with slapstick experts such as the Stooges (she even beat up poor Shemp Howard in the classic Brideless Groom (1947), then knocked him through a door), and it was merely through unfortunate twists of fate that she never segued over into television at the same time that funnywomen Lucille Ball and Imogene Coca were making their small-screen marks. Though Christine's career at Columbia consisted mostly of comedy shorts, she did show up in occasional features, often westerns. In 1953, near the end of her Columbia contract, she married radio producer/writer/actor J. Donald Wilson (not to be confused with Jack Benny's announcer Don Wilson), and soon after retired from show business. Christine and J. Donald spent the next 30 years developing joint careers in real estate. The former actress passed away in Van Nuys, California, on July 8, 1984, six months after her husband.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Bill Telfer <taillefer@juno.com>
- SpouseJ. Donald Wilson(June 27, 1953 - January 26, 1984) (his death)
- ChildrenNo Children
- ParentsJohn Edward McIntyreEdna Annette Barnaby McIntyre
- RelativesMarian Edna McIntyre Walecki(Sibling)Jean Mary McIntyre Martin(Sibling)John Edward McIntyre Jr.(Sibling)Annes Constance McIntyre(Sibling)Jean Annette "Judy" Martin(Niece or Nephew)
- Widely considered by fans to have been as important to The Three Stooges as Margaret Dumont was to The Marx Brothers.
- Starred in a total of 27 shorts with The Three Stooges.
- Received her Bachelor of Music degree from Chicago Musical College in 1933.
- A trained opera singer, her singing talents were showcased in several of the shorts she made with The Three Stooges, most notably in Micro-Phonies (1945).
- Interred at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, CA.
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