Esther Howard

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Esther Howard (April 4, 1892 – March 8, 1965) was an American stage and film character actress who appeared in about 108 movies during her 23-year screen career. She was born in Butte, Montana, to Martha and James Howard Jr., a music teacher and conductor. Her family moved to Boston when she was five. She studied at the Girls’ Latin School and began acting on stock stages in Lynn, Massachusetts. She made her Broadway debut in 1917 in Eve’s Daughter and later appeared in Wildflower (1923) and The New Moon (1929).

Howard moved to films in 1930 with The Victim, and from then until her retirement in 1952 she acted in at least one movie each year. She was known for playing a range of character roles, from oversexed dowagers to old crones and glamorous society dames. Notable roles include Miss Prescott in Meet the Mayor (1932); Jessie Florian in Murder My Sweet (1944); the aunt who has a crush on Oliver Hardy in The Big Noise (1944); Holly the diner waitress in Detour (1945); Filthy Flora in Dick Tracy vs. Cueball (1946); Mrs. Kraft in Born to Kill (1947); and Kirk Douglas’s mother in Champion (1949). She also did ghost singing for bigger stars, though she never sang on screen herself.

From 1940 to 1949 she was part of Preston Sturges’ unofficial stock company, appearing in seven of his films. She regularly acted in Columbia short subjects from 1937, often opposite Andy Clyde. Her last film was Caught on the Bounce (1952), a Columbia short in which she played Joe Besser’s aunt. Howard died of a heart attack in Los Angeles in 1965 at age 72 and was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. She was married to Arthur Albertson.