Anya Taranda was a model and actress who suffered from mental health problems
She was born on January 1, 1915 in New York City. When she was a teenager she was signed by the Powers agency to be a model. Anya was chosen to be one of the original Breck shampoo girls. At the age of seventeen she appeared on Broadway in Earl Carroll's Vanities. The beautiful blonde became one of the Goldwyn Girls and appeared in the 1936 musical Strike Me Pink. She had bits parts in numerous films including Top Hat, Murder At The Vanities, and Broadway Melody of 1936. Anya also worked as a stand-in for Merle Oberon. On January 8, 1937 she married composer Harold Arlen. Her Catholic parents were opposed to the union because he was Jewish. Harold said that he was inspired to write the classic song "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" while he and Anya were driving down Sunset Boulevard together in 1938.
Tired of acting she decided to retire and become a full-time housewife. Her final film appearance was in the 1941 drama Ziegfeld Girl. She and Harold wanted to have baby but she was unable to get pregnant. As she got older she began to suffer from mood swings and struggled with her mental health. In 1951 she was institutionalized after threatening to harm her husband. Sadly she would spend the next seven years in a mental institution. While she was hospitalized Harold had an affair with Marlene Dietrich and fathered a son with another woman. Anya and Harold moved to New York City in the late 1950s. During the summer of 1969 she was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. Tragically on March 9, 1970 she died at the age of fifty-five. She was buried at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.
