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Ann Dvorak (August 2, 1911 – December 10, 1979) was an American film actress. Asked how to pronounce her adopted surname, she told The Literary Digest: "My name is properly pronounced vor'shack. The D remains silent. I have had quite a time with the name, having been called practically everything from Balzac to Bickelsrock." Born Anna McKim in New York City of Irish-Australian descent, the only child of two vaudevillians, she was raised in the business that would later make her a star. Her father, Edwin McKim worked as a director for the Lubin Studios, and her mother, Anna Lehr, found... MORE

Ann Dvorak (August 2, 1911 – December 10, 1979) was an American film actress. Asked how to pronounce her adopted surname, she told The Literary Digest: "My name is properly pronounced vor'shack. The D remains silent. I have had quite a time with the name, having been called practically everything from Balzac to Bickelsrock." Born Anna McKim in New York City of Irish-Australian descent, the only child of two vaudevillians, she was raised in the business that would later make her a star. Her father, Edwin McKim worked as a director for the Lubin Studios, and her mother, Anna Lehr, found success as the star of many silent features. The couple split when Ann was four, and she and her mother moved to Hollywood. Ann would not see her father again until a national appeal to the press reunited the two in 1934. As a child, she appeared in several films. She began working for MGM in the late 1920s as a dance instructor and gradually began to appear on film as a chorus girl. Her friend Joan Crawford introduced her to Howard Hughes, who groomed her as a dramatic actress. She was a success in such pre-Code films as Scarface (1932), as Paul Muni's character's sister; as the doomed unstable LESS