105

Lucy Cotton on stage with Alice Hastings in the 1917

stage comedy Turn to the Right (from

Munsey's

Magazine

).

On January 1, 1949

The Billboard

magazine carried this

brief notice under the section

―

The Final Curtain

‖

:

Magraw - Lucy Cotton, 57, former actress, December 12

in Miami Beach Fla. She made her first Broadway

appearance in the musical,

The Quaker Girl

, followed by

top roles in

Up in Mabel's Room

,

Turn to the Right

,

Lightnin'

, and many others. She also appeared in films with George Arliss in

The Green

Goddess

and

The Devil

. She was the owner of the Macfadden-Deauville Hotel, Miami.

Her daughter survives.

Lucy died of an overdose of sleeping pills.

The other side of Lucy

Lucy had another side. She was an inventor.

In

The American Weekly

Gene Coughlin wrote,

―

She was busy inventing such objects as a

two-handed grip for safety razors when the overpowering loneliness and need for

oblivion seized her just before Christmas of 1948.

‖

In

Mrs. Astor's House

, a collection of biographical sketches published in 1935, Stanley

Walker quotes Lucy,

―

I am quite an inventor. I dream about them at night and then get

up and invent things. I have to turn my thoughts away from inventions or I would be

busy with them all the time. I have invented a lipstick, a beaded bag, a cigarette lighter

and a cigar case.

‖

Lucy was granted 15 utility patents and 7 design patents. Her first 13 patent

applications were filed between July 1927 and September 1929 while living in New

York City. The other nine were filed between May 1944 and December 1946 while living

in Miami. The last patent for a Massaging Device was granted posthumously in 1950. A

table of her patents can be found at the end of this article.

The biggest surprise is her design patent for a

―

Bottle Opener

‖

which shows in the

drawing a corkscrew combined with the bottle opener.