Jody Lawrance Profile

Jody Lawrance

	(Nona Jeannette Goddard / Nona Josephine Goddard / Josephine Lawrence Goddard)
19 October 30	is born in Fort Worth, Texas, to Ervin and Eleanor Goddard, nee Roeck
c. 35	young Marilyn Monroe moves in with newlyweds Grace McKee and Ervin Goddard in a bungalow on Odessa Street in Van Nuys and becomes her foster sister. Later Jody will describe Marilyn as a neurotic child who clammed up and was very sensitive toward her surroundings.
?	is an expert swimmer and spends two seasons with a water show
?	attends the Hollywood Professional School
c. 50	attends Beverly Hills High School
?	is brought to the attention of Columbia by Benno Schneider and his wife and is signed
July 51	has other actresses worrying because she snubs fancy hairdos
July 52	is movie-town's only leg art holdout. She claims "I never have been and I never want to be a glamour girl."
August 52	her new stepfather is Korean War hero, Colonel Donald Stephen Nero. Her mother, Eleanor, will divorce him in December 1952.
October 52	goes nightclubbing with fellow actor Lance Fuller, who asks his friends to check on the cocktail party given by his estranged wife, actress Joi Lansing
February 53	forms Screen Tests, Inc., with Broadway's Benno Schneider, which specializes in three-minute film tests for studios, which makes it easier for young talents to break into movies
April 53	dying her hair black for John Smith and her role as Pocahontas causes an allergy to kick up
53	asks Columbia for her release after All Ashore, and word circulates that she is temperamental. Charles Feldman signs her for six months, and then she is dropped.
January 55	works as a waitress in an ice cream shop near the UCLA campus
c. 55	director Michael Curtiz sees her in a Fireside Theater film that she made a few months earlier, drops into the Westwood shop to see her, and signs her for his upcoming film
October 55	is named a "Deb Star of 1955," together with Cathy Crosby, Anita Ekberg, Lilian Montevecchi, Kipp Hamilton, Mara Corday, Lori Nelson, Tracey Morgan, Marisa Pavan, and Gloria Thomas
	columnist Louella Parsons reports from the Stars of Tomorrow gala that "it's hard to single out any one girl as the most beautiful. Jody Lawrence got a round of applause."
7 April 56	secretly marries Bruce Michael Tilton, an airplane parts company executive, in Las Vegas, Nevada. The press gives his age as 27; hers as 25.
20 April 56	discloses her marriage to Tilton in Hollywood saying she met him three months ago and decided to elope to nearby Gretna Green two weeks ago
January 57	TV producer Fred Henry of Don Fedderson's "Millionaire" crew has her on loan from Paramount
6 October 57	her daughter, Victoria P., is born in Los Angeles
March 59	she and Tilton separate
May 59	files suit for divorce from Tilton
November 59	columnist Harrison Carroll reports that "in spite of the effort of the reconciliation court, actress Jody Lawrence and her husband, Bruce Tilton, couldn't reach a reconciliation. Jody, who just finished a leading role in Allied Artists' The Purple Gang, tells me she will go ahead with the divorce..."
March 60	is sued for divorce by her husband, real estate broker Bruce M. Tilton
2 June 60	is in Los Angeles Superior Court claiming she wants two and a half-year-old Victoria back. She says she was "confused and emotionally upset" at the time when she granted her estranged husband custody of her daughter and that she wants her back now. Both parents are suing for divorce and are 29. Superior Court Commissioner Victor J. Hayek rules against her, however, issuing a temporary court order continuing custody by Tilton pending trial of their divorce.
18 May 61	Tilton obtains a default divorce from her claiming she went out without telling him where she was going and was calling him "vile names." Both are 30. Tilton, a Woodland Hills real estate man, is awarded custody of their daughter. He tells Superior Judge Elmer D. Doyle that Jody drank to excess and once hit and kicked him. She doesn't appear at the Los Angeles hearing because of illness, her attorney says.
January 65	Tilton is president of Woodland Development Co.
?	marries Robert W. Herre
10 July 86	as Josephine Lawrence Herre, she dies at age 55 in California

Sources: Linda Pound, Marc Kagan, Marilyn Monroe: The Biography by Donald Spoto, Picture Show Annual 1954, Syracuse Herald Journal, The Evening Banner, Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, Humboldt Standard, The Monessen Daily Independent, Valley Morning Star, The Newport Daily News, The Lancaster Eagle-Gazette, Indiana Evening Gazette, The Daily Review, The Long Beach Independent, The Mountain Democrat, Nevada State Journal, Lancaster Eagle-Gazette, Star-News, Van Nuys News, www.Ancestry.com
Recommended Books:
Links: Filmography