Margaret Roach was a talented actress who lived in the shadow of her famous father Hal Roach
She born Margaret Mae Roach on March 15, 1921 in Los Angeles, California. Her father, Hal Roach, was one of the most successful producers in Hollywood. When she was a teenager she moved to Switzerland and spent three years training to be an opera singer. Margaret began her career singing in nightclubs using the stage name "Diana Belmont". Her father didn't want her to be an actress and initially refused to help her. She said "Agents didn't want to handle me because they were afraid my father would be mad at them if they didn't get me big roles." In 1938 she convinced her father to give her a small role as a singer in his film Swiss Miss. Margaret appeared in numerous Hal Roach productions including Turnabout, Road Show, and Captain Fury. When the press called her "plump" she went to a sanitarium to lose weight. She was hospitalized in October of 1940 for a serious heart ailment. A few months later she announced her engagement to Geoffrey Steele, an airline executive, but they broke up before the wedding.
With her brother and father Hal Roach
Following the death of her mother in 1941 she was briefly estranged from her father. Margaret married Lieutenant E.L. Hinton in August of 1942. They were divorced three years later. She continued appear in films like A Haunting We Will Go and Her Comes Trouble. Unfortunately most of these roles were uncredited bit parts. On December 18, 1947 she married actor Robert Livingston Randall. The couple had a son named Addison. After making the 1949 crime drama The Devil's Sleep she decided to quit acting. Her marriage to Robert ended in 1951 and she was given full custody of their son. By this time she was dealing with a serious alcohol problem. In 1960 she was injured when her limousine crashed into a fire truck. Soon after she moved to Reno, Nevada. Sadly on November 25, 1964 she died from cirrhosis of the liver caused by chronic alcoholism. Margaret was only forty-three years old. She was buried near her mother at Holy Cross cemetery in Los Angeles. Her son Addison Randall also became an actor.
With John Hubbard and Carole Landis in Road Show