Cleo Mayfield

{{Use mdy dates|date=October 2019}} {{Short description|American actress (1898–1954)}} {{Infobox person | name = Cleo Mayfield | image = Cleo Mayfield - May 1922 HD.jpg | alt = | caption = Mayfield in 1922 | birth_name = Cleo Empey | birth_date = {{Birth date|1898|08|06}} | birth_place = Hutchinson, Kansas, U.S. | death_date = {{Death date and age|1954|11|08|1898|08|06}} | death_place = New York City, U.S. | resting_place = Kensico Cemetery | occupation = Actress | years_active = {{circa}}1912–1944 | notable_works =  | spouse = {{marriage |Cecil Lean |1914}} }}

'''Cleo Mayfield''' (born '''Cleo Empey'''; August 6, 1898 – November 8, 1954) was an American actress and singer.

==Biography==

Mayfield was born Cleo Empey, the youngest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Clarence B. Empey in Hutchinson, Kansas.<ref name=MarriageAnnouncement>{{cite news |author= |date=February 23, 1914 |title=Cleo Empey Married |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/714178/ |work=The Hutchinson News |page=11 |volume=XXVII |issue=309 |edition=Last |via=Newspapers.com |access-date=July 23, 2018}}</ref><ref name=MiddleInitial>{{cite news |author= |date=February 8, 1914 |title=[No title listed.] |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/418894369/ |work=The Hutchinson Gazette |page=4 |volume=XII |issue=198 |via=Newspapers.com |access-date=October 17, 2018}}</ref><ref name=HNChildhood>{{cite news |author= |date=June 23, 1913 |title=Work of Hutchinson Girl is Making a Success of Vaudeville with Cecil Lean |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/477734741/ |work=The Hutchinson News |page=2 |volume=XXVII |issue=102 |via=Newspapers.com |access-date=October 17, 2018}}</ref> As a child, she attended the North Side school in Hutchinson,<ref>{{cite news |author= |date=February 10, 1896 |title=The City Schools |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/477624723/ |work=The Hutchinson News |page=6 |volume=XI |issue=147 |via=Newspapers.com |access-date=October 17, 2018}}</ref> before moving with her family to Kansas City, Missouri at the age of twelve.<ref name=HNChildhood /> [[File:Cleo Mayfield & Cecil Lean at White House, 10-15-24 LOC npcc.12454.jpg|thumb|left|Mayfield with husband Cecil Lean in 1924]]

Mayfield first met Cecil Lean in Chicago in 1912, during the production of ''The Military Girl'' at the Ziegfeld Theatre.<ref name=InquirerLeanObit>{{cite news |author= |date=July 18, 1935 |title=Cecil Lean Dies on Street in N.Y. |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/174702199/ |location=New York |work=The Philadelphia Inquirer |page=2 |volume=CCXIII |issue=19 |edition=Late City |via=Newspapers.com |access-date=October 18, 2018}}</ref> By 1913, she had assumed the stage name Cleo Mayfield.<ref>{{cite news |author= |date=January 7, 1914 |title=Cleo Mayfield, Hutchinson Girl, Makes Good On Stage |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/477755138/ |work=The Hutchinson News |page=12 |volume=XXVII |issue=269 |edition=Early Mail |via=Newspapers.com |access-date=October 17, 2018}}</ref> For the remainder of Lean's career, the two would frequently appear together in theatrical productions.<ref name=EC>{{cite news |author= |date=July 19, 1935 |title=Cecil Lean Dies Near N.Y. Theatre |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/479901361/ |work=Evening Courier |page=3 |volume=LII |issue=41 |edition=Final |via=Newspapers.com |access-date=October 18, 2018}}</ref> In February 1914, Mayfield married Cecil Lean in a civil ceremony in Chicago.<ref name=WDE>{{cite news |author= |date=February 25, 1914 |title=Hutchinson Star Weds |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/64376432/ |work=Wichita Daily Eagle |page=1 |volume=LVII |issue=82 |via=Newspapers.com |access-date=July 23, 2018}}</ref> Prior to their marriage, Mayfield and Lean had been in a romantic relationship for over two years that only a few of their closest friends knew about.<ref name=WDE /><ref name=MarriageAnnouncement /> In July 1935, in the presence of Mayfield, Lean collapsed and died of an apparent heart attack in Manhattan.<ref name=EC />{{efn|Contemporary newspaper accounts agree that Lean collapsed while walking outside a Manhattan theater; they variously identify that theater as either the Booth Theatre<ref name=CTLeanObit>{{cite news |author= |date=July 18, 1935 |title=Cecil Lean, 57, Musical Comedy Star, Succumbs |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/371378630/ |work=Chicago Tribune |page=18 |volume=XCIV |issue=172 |edition=Final |via=Newspapers.com |access-date=October 18, 2018}}</ref> or the Plymouth Theatre.<ref name=EC />}}

Over the course of her career, Mayfield made numerous appearances on Broadway stages and toured widely—as far afield as London—in a variety of musicals.<ref>{{cite news |author= |date=November 10, 1954 |title=Cleo Mayfield Dies, Star of 20s |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/176410384/ |work=The Philadelphia Inquirer |page=25 |volume=CCLI |issue=133 |edition=Final City |via=Newspapers.com |access-date=October 18, 2018}}</ref> Her Broadway appearances include productions of: ''The Man with Three Wives'', ''The Blue Paradise'', ''Miss 1917'', ''Look Who's Here'', ''The Blushing Bride'', and ''Innocent Eyes''.<ref name=IBDBProfile>{{cite web |url=https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-cast-staff/cleo-mayfield-51998 |title=Cleo Mayfield |author= |website=Internet Broadway Database |publisher=The Broadway League |access-date=October 18, 2018}}</ref> Her notable theatrical appearances away from Broadway include the touring production of No, No, Nanette that debuted in Detroit in January 1925.<ref>{{cite book |last=Green |first=Stanley |author-link=Stanley Green (historian)|date=2011 |title=Broadway Musicals: Show by Show |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2ZXRAQAAQBAJ&pg=PT81 |location=Milwaukee, Wisconsin |publisher=Hal Leonard Corporation |page=81 |isbn=9781557837844 |edition=7th |access-date=October 22, 2018 |quote=By the time No, No Nanette arrived in New York, a second road company had been touring since January 1925 (with Cleo Mayfield, Cecil Lean, Donald Brian, and Ona Munson), and a London facsimile had been running for six months.}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |author= |date=January 3, 1925 |title=Theater |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/24743592/chicago_theater_summary/ |work=Chicago Tribune |page=13 |volume=LXXXIV |issue=3 |edition=Final |via=Newspapers.com |access-date=October 22, 2018}}</ref>

Mayfield made her final Broadway appearance in 1944, in a comedy play called ''Right Next to Broadway''.<ref name=APObit>{{cite news |author= |date=November 9, 1954 |title=Cleo Mayfield, 57, actress, Dies in N.Y. |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/315289583/ |work=The Central New Jersey Home News |agency=Associated Press |page=21 |edition=Late City |via=Newspapers.com |access-date=October 18, 2018}}</ref> After a lengthy struggle with cancer, Mayfield died on November 8, 1954, at her residence in New York City at the Ansonia Hotel.<ref name=APObit /><ref>{{cite news |author= |date=November 9, 1954 |title=Cleo Mayfield |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/455948102/ |work=Daily News |page=403 |volume=XXXVI |issue=117 |edition=Final |via=Newspapers.com |access-date=October 18, 2018}}</ref>

==Notes== {{noteslist}}

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links== {{Commons category}} * {{Find a Grave}} * {{IBDB name}} * {{Playbill person}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mayfield, Cleo}} Category:1898 births Category:1954 deaths Category:American vaudeville performers Category:Actresses from Kansas City, Kansas Category:Singers from Kansas Category:People from Hutchinson, Kansas Category:American stage actresses Category:American musical theatre actresses Category:20th-century American actresses Category:20th-century American singers Category:20th-century American women singers Category:Musicians from Kansas City, Kansas Category:Burials at Kensico Cemetery Category:Deaths from cancer in New York (state)