The Golden Age short film series Our Gang, also known as The Little Rascals, featured
a rotating cast of over 40 different child performers during its two decades in production.
However, one of the most memorable of those child performers has proved to be Darla Hood.
After filming over 50 films in the Our Gang series, Darla went on to have a nice life.
However, she died tragically from a mistake during a medical procedure.
Join Facts Verse as we explore the tragic life and death of Darla Hood from Our Gang.
Darla Hood was born on November 8, 1931, in Leedey Oklahoma.
She was the only child of a bank worker named James and a mother named Elizabeth, who taught
music.
Given her mother’s predilection for musical teachings, Darla took to music at an early
age.
Seeing her daughter’s potential, Elizabeth began taking Darla to expensive singing and
dancing classes at the age of only 3.
That teacher ended up seeing great potential in Darla as well and was able to convince
Elizabeth to take her daughter out to New York City to try and see if she could become
a child star.
Elizabeth took Darla to New York City, where her daughter began singing and dancing in
front of the band at the Edison Hotel.
The young girl began drawing quite a crowd night after night, and eventually caught the
eye of a notable casting director.
That casting director was Joe Rivkin, the casting director for the Our Gang series of
short films.
As the casting director for Hal Roach Studios, Joe Rivkin was the man in charge of procuring
talent for the Our Gang series of short films.
When he saw Darla performing in front of the band at the Edison Hotel, he knew that she
would be a perfect addition to the rotating cast of child performers featured on the then-established
short film series.
Joe invited Darla to come screen test for Hal Roach Studios, and she impressed the producers
there just as much as she had impressed him.
At the age of only three years old, Darla was given her first contract with a production
studio.
Upon her successful screen test with Hal Roach Studios, Darla and her family moved out to
Culver City, California, where the studio was located.
From that point forward, Darla became a staple in the Our Gang series of short films.
She made her debut in 1935, playing a character by the name of Cookie.
However, the name of her character was changed to her own name of Darla in subsequent short
films.
Darla was only four years old when she made her 1935 debut in the Our Gang series of short
films.
She continued performing in the series until 1941.
Over the course of this time, her character became the love interest of many of the male
children, most famously Alfalfa.
One of Darla’s most memorable moments from the short films that she was featured in include
the moment when she sang Frances Langford’s 1935 hit single “I’m in the Mood for Love”.
This occurred during the 1936 short feature The Pinch Singer.
Darla’s final appearance in an Our Gang film was in the 1941 short feature Wedding
Worries.
After over half of a decade spent acting in the popular short film series, Darla no longer
fit in amongst the show’s increasingly younger cast members that were being brought in to
replace old ones.
During the same time that Darla had worked on the Our Gang series of short films, she
had also worked with beloved Golden Age comedians Laurel and Hardy in their feature The Bohemian
Girl.
After leaving the Our Gang series, Darla worked with MGM for a few more years and appeared
in several feature films before attending high school and deciding that she’d rather
be a singer than an actress.
The Our Gang series of short films had also been known as The Little Rascals or Hal Roach’s
Rascals.
The latter name was taken from Hal Roach Studios, which produced the series.
The series of short films was centered on a group of poor children from the same neighborhood
that spent their time playing together.
It was known for its progressive depiction of society, including the portrayal of white
and black children together.
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Although Darla hadn’t even been born at the time, the Our Gang series got its start
in 1922.
Hal Roach, the owner and founder of Hal Roach Studios, created it.
Hal had previously been credited for putting together the comedic duo of Laurel and Hardy,
which makes it no surprise that Darla showed up in one of their features soon after making
her debut.
The Our Gang series originally started out as silent short films.
The concept of the series was to portray children behaving in a naturalistic way, which Hal
Roach believed would be intrinsically comical to the audience.
Children had rarely been depicted accurately on film up until that point, with most child
performers being trained singers and dancers that could accurately mimic their adult counterparts.
Although Darla was certainly a skilled singer and dancer, Our Gang utilized her for her
childish charm more than for her ability to mimic older singers and dancers of the time.
In 1929, the Our Gang series of short films changed from being silent features to features
with sound.
After this, the series became more popular than ever.
This led to the series’ most popular period, which Darla would come in during and eventually
help define her character.
New short films in the series were produced until 1944, though Darla had left the series
by 1941.
Over 200 films were produced in the series, and over 50 featured Darla.
MGM was the distributor for the Our Gang series, and Darla found continued work with them up
until deciding to leave the industry to pursue her education as a teenager.
After having been a Hollywood star for a decade, Darla became just another high school girl
when she attended Fairfax High School in Los Angeles.
While Darla appreciated this break into normalcy, she eventually decided that she wanted to
find her way back into stardom.
However, this time, she wanted to do it in a new way that didn’t involve any acting.
Although Darla memorably sang in the Our Gang series of short films, they didn’t truly
utilize her musical chops like she had wanted.
As a teenager, Darla decided to start her own musical group in order to finally fulfill
her musical promise.
The group was named Darla Hood and the Enchanters.
Although the group may not have risen to the heights of the most popular pop groups of
the era, their music was modestly successful and was featured in several movies.
Darla went on to record over a dozen albums, and also became a regular on the radio show
of DJ Merv Griffin.
At some point, Darla resumed her early career as a nightclub performer, where she found
a good deal of success.
Another career avenue that Darla explored during her adult years was performing commercial
jingles.
Although the job may not have brought the former child actress much prestige, it did
allow her to make some pretty hefty amounts of money.
Darla also made some memorable appearances alongside the likes of such notable figures
as Jack Benny and Groucho Marx.
In regards to the former, Darla performed in a recurring series of sketches on The Jack
Benny Program that parodied the Our Gang series of short films.
Darla could no longer get away with playing a little girl, so she was cast as Alfalfa
instead.
Darla had known Jack since her days of filming the Our Gang series, and the two had developed
a close friendship in the years since that initial meeting.
Darla was married two times over the course of her life.
Her first husband was Robert W. Decker, an insurance salesman that was attempting to
moonlight as a singer.
Darla was married to Robert from 1949 until 1957.
The same year Darla divorced Robert, she married another time.
This time, the man she married was Jose Granson, a successful executive at a record company.
Darla and Jose stayed together until the event of the former’s tragic death, and they had
three children during that period.
On June 13, 1979, Darla had been brought to the hospital for a routine appendectomy.
It seemed that all had gone well with the procedure, but Darla died of a surprise and
sudden heart attack shortly after its completion.
As it turns, the blood that had been given to Darla in the transfusion had been contaminated
with hepatitis.
The exposure caused the ensuing fatal heart attack, and Darla was pronounced tragically
dead at the age of only 47.
Over the course of its two-decade production run, the Our Gang series of short films featured
over 40 different child performers in its constantly rotating cast.
Many believe that there has been a curse amongst the former Our Gang cast members, and the
tragic death of Darla is often held up as an example.
However, people that don’t believe in superstitious theories routinely scoff at this notion.
Among the other former Our Gang cast members that met tragic ends include Carl Switzer,
who played Alfalfa.
Carl was shot to death at the age of only 31.
While most other former Our Gang actors and actresses have certainly passed away since
their time appearing in the series, that fact has likely been due more to time than to any
curse.
Over the course of her early career, Darla Hood appeared in over 50 short films in the
Our Gang series.
Comment down below to share what your favorite Our Gang moment featuring Darla is, or if
you are planning on revisiting the classic Golden Age series of short films anytime soon!
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