Symona Boniface(1894-1950)
- Actress
An American actress most frequently seen in bit parts in comedy shorts,
mostly at Columbia Pictures, particularly those of
The Three Stooges, Symona Boniface
entered the theatre as a playwright and actress, and produced plays as
well. After the stock market crash of 1929 she began taking bit parts
in films, many of them merely dress-extra jobs. She had a few
substantial supporting roles, but most often she was merely a figure in
the background. In the 1930s she signed on as a contract player at
Columbia, and began appearing in almost all of that studio's comedy
shorts. Most frequently she performed as a foil for The Three Stooges,
though she also worked with Andy Clyde. Her
haughty demeanor made her perfect for the stuffy grande dames whose
lives were made miserable by the incursion of idiot Stooges, and she is
a memorable, if rarely identified, part of the Stooge comedy legacy.
She died at 56 in 1950, though her image continued to show up for years
afterwards due to Columbia's habit of using footage from films shot
years previously to pad many of its "new" shorts in order to save
money.
