"Laugh and grow fat." ~ Sunshine
Sunshine Hart was born Lucia Adams on July 6, 1886, in Vevay, Indiana. She would later claim that her father was a minister on an Indian reservation and that an Indian nurse gave her the nickname "Sunshine". After high school she started acting in stock companies and spent many years working in vaudeville using the stage "Miss Sunshine". She married Charles W. Hart and in 1912 their daughter Leora was born. At the age of thirty Sunshine made her film debut in the 1916 comedy short A Scoundrel's Toll. She continued to work on the stage and appeared in several of Jack White's Mermaid comedies. By 1924 she had divorced her husband and moved to Los Angeles. Producer Mack Sennett gave Sunshine a part in his short film Scarem Much. She would go on to star in more than two dozen of Sennett's comedies including Crazy To Act, Hoboken To Hollywood, and Smith's Baby.
Sunshine, who weighed more than 250 pounds, usually played funny mothers. She became a popular character actress and was often called a female Fatty Arbuckle. Despite her age and size she was always willing to do dangerous stunts if it got a laugh. Sunshine loved making films but she told an interviewer her main priority in life was raising her daughter. In 1927 she was cast as Mary Pickford's mother in My Best Girl. During filming she badly injured her foot when she fell doing an automobile stunt. Although she kept working she never fully recovered from this accident. Sunshine had a small role in the 1930 comedy Midnight Daddies. It would be her last film. She died on January 3, 1930. Sunshine was only forty-three years old. Sadly she had spent the last few weeks of her life bedridden.
Sunshine, who weighed more than 250 pounds, usually played funny mothers. She became a popular character actress and was often called a female Fatty Arbuckle. Despite her age and size she was always willing to do dangerous stunts if it got a laugh. Sunshine loved making films but she told an interviewer her main priority in life was raising her daughter. In 1927 she was cast as Mary Pickford's mother in My Best Girl. During filming she badly injured her foot when she fell doing an automobile stunt. Although she kept working she never fully recovered from this accident. Sunshine had a small role in the 1930 comedy Midnight Daddies. It would be her last film. She died on January 3, 1930. Sunshine was only forty-three years old. Sadly she had spent the last few weeks of her life bedridden.
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