Molly O’Day was born Suzanne Dobson Noonan in Bayonne, New Jersey, in 1909, the youngest of 11 children of a judge, Thomas Francis Patrick Noonan, and a Metropolitan Opera singer, Hannah Kelly. After the judge’s death the family fractured: sisters Sally and Isabelle headed west to act, while brother John drew a seven-year prison sentence in 1930 for receiving stolen property and brother Victor faced grand larceny charges over a stock swindle. Suzanne started as an extra in a 1926 Laurel and Hardy short and the Our Gang series before producer Al Rockett spotted her in a mob scene and insisted she star as the tough-girl heroine of The Patent Leather Kid in 1927, beating out 2,000 other hopefuls at age 16.

This episode examines how First National Pictures took ownership of her identity, renaming her Kitty Kelly and then Molly O’Day, how she was named a WAMPAS Baby Star in 1928, and how the studio’s suspension clause froze her salary when she gained weight during the flapper era. In late 1928 she underwent experimental surgery to remove pounds of flesh from her hips and legs, yet by 1930 she filed for bankruptcy with 200 dollars in assets against 12,798.78 dollars in debt. She turned to vaudeville with her sister, took minor film roles through the 1930s, raised four children, and died in Arroyo Grande, California, in October 1998, one day shy of her 89th birthday.

• How a producer’s ultimatum could halt a major picture in the feudal system of early Hollywood
• Why the suspension clause let studios stop paying actors while forbidding them to work anywhere else
• The Associated Press report quoting O’Day blaming her own weight for her lack of work
• How the demand to maintain an illusion of wealth on a frozen salary engineered her bankruptcy
• Her 1960 star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1708 Vine Street, and what her story says about likeness rights in the AI era