Miss. Crabtree
Anything but…The Little Rascals Teacher had a charmed life and a wonderful personality to match.
You know the story, kids and animals don’t lie. Walk into a room and if there are children or pets present they will immediately catch the good or bad vibe you are emanating. This is how you know that actress June Marlowe was as good on the outside and she was on the inside. Her face portrayed a loving and caring person and the Little Rascal kids gravitated to her. I know most of you might think;
“well that is because they are actors”. of course they liked her it was all an act”.
Kids don’t hide their true feelings and most at a young age do not know they are acting. Therefore those looks of admiration were true feelings. I remember as a young person myself watching the reruns of “The Little Rascal's”, I loved when the episodes with Miss. Crabtree were on because she was so likeable and pretty too!
June Marlowe was born Gisella Goetten, the daughter of German immigrants in St. Cloud, Minnesota, but the family moved west in the early Twenties for her father’s health. She originally studied for a degree in art, but director Mal St. Clair saw her in a stage play and invited her to do a screen test. While under contract to Warner Brothers, producer Sol Lesser renamed her “June Marlowe” and promoted her as “The Most Beautiful Girl On Screen” and “The girl with the soulful eyes.” She appeared in several Warner Brothers productions, mostly as an innocent or unsophisticated young woman in several “Rin-Tin-Tin” movies.
In 1925, she was named a Wampas Baby Star by the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers whose ranks included Clara Bow, Joan Crawford, Mary Astor, Joan Gaynor and Fay Wray. However, June’s acting range was limited and when her contract ran out, she went to Universal Pictures. She did one movie with Rex The Wonder Horse. Universal loaned June over to their Europe-based movie studios for a year of movies overseas because of her ability to speak German.
Upon returning stateside, June did her first sound project called “The Lone Defender” for Mascot Pictures who wanted to reunite her with Rin-Tin-Tin, but instead, she started work as the teacher in the Our Gang shorts, wearing a blonde wig over her brunette locks. Writer and Director Robert McGowan named her character (Miss. Crabtree)after a former child actress named Lotta Crabtree.
You can’t reminisce about Miss. Crabtree as a teacher without those classic schoolhouse scenes. The classroom scenes were filmed in what had been a real schoolhouse. Hal Roach had purchased one to keep it from getting torn down, but unfortunately, it no longer exists.
Last Call
June also did one Laurel & Hardy film, “Pardon Us,” and after her Rascal’s stint, she did one more movie (Devil on Deck)before leaving acting altogether at the age of 29.
She married Rodney Sprigg, a friend of McGowan, who had a moving and storage business. Although confused with two other actresses using the name June Marlowe, she settled in San Diego and enjoyed her time gardening, traveling and with animals and charities. She never had any children of her own. All of her brothers had followed her into the movie business, one as an actor, one as a propman and another as an assistant director, each of them under the name Marlowe. Long after June had left Our Gang, she was still getting fan mail. The short, Teacher’s Beau, had been made for her, but she wasn’t interested in coming back.
After the Rascal’s Revival in the Fifties, June wrote two children’s books, “Beesy” and “Furry,” until Parkinson’s made it hard for her to write. She eventually returned to live in Los Angeles, her husband passing away in 1982. When Leonard Maltin contacted her to send her the first edition copies of his definitive Our Gang book, she already had copies of it. Her return letter had to be dictated as she could no longer write. She passed away in Burbank, California at St. Joseph’s Hospital in 1984.
For someone whose character had the word “crab” in it she was anything but. What you saw on screen was who June Marlowe was off screen. In my research I did not find a shred of controversy, bad press or ill word written about her. It is nice for once to write about an actor who lived a productive and fruitful life and was just a nice person.
