Nila Mack

[1] Her mother, Margaret, was a dance instructor, and her father, Don Carlos, was a railroad engineer who died in a train accident when Nila was very young.

After his death, she attended an Illinois finishing school, Ferry Hall in Lake Forest, and later took classes in both Arkansas City and Boston, financing her education by playing the piano at her mother’s dance studio.

She worked in vaudeville and spent six years with the Nazimova company, appearing with that troupe on Broadway in Fair and Warmer and A Doll’s House, as well as the play and film versions of War Brides (1918).

When her husband died in December 1927, after 13 years of their marriage, Mack took various acting jobs and wrote comedy for Nydia Westman and Fanny Brice.

I figured that if these lively pieces with a message at their hearts had meant so much to me, other children would like them, too.” In addition to original scripts, the series broadcast more than 300 fairy tale adaptations.