Tuesday, February 18, 2025

Curtain Call: Starlite Theater Celebrates 95 years of Nancy Drew, Millie Benson

On January 19 Starlite Theater Group will celebrate 95 years of Nancy Drew and Mildred Wirt Benson, aka Carolyn Keene, with two screenings of the 1939 film Nancy Drew & The Hidden Staircase starring Bonita Granville as Nancy. There will be a screening for kids with Nancy themed activities in the afternoon, and a second, evening screening for adults, also featuring WGTE’s documentary The Storied Life of Millie Benson. Benson shares a special connection with Toledo. She lived and worked here for much of her adult life until she
passed away at the age of 96 in 2002.

Millie Benson, Nancy Drew and The Greatest Generation

Born in Ladora Iowa in 1905, Benson was born into The Greatest Generation— the generation that defined mod- ern society as we know it; A post WW1 generation that survived a world war and an epidemic that killed a third of the world’s population. A rebel generation, they rejected everything that the generation before stood for. Women got the vote, broke free of corsets and never looked back.

The first Nancy Drew books were published in 1930, which means Millie and Nancy came into their own at the time of the first talking pictures and the era of pre-Code films in 1930-1934. In those early days of Hollywood, films were not yet censored and many of its finest actresses (Joan Crawford, Kay Francis, Norma Shearer, and Barbara Stanwyck to name a few) were choosing roles that depicted them as career women, adventurers and the captains of their own lives. Their generation roared and defined modern life as we know it.

Millie Benson in Toledo

Cathy Kamenca, the Engagement Coordinator and TV Programmer at
WGTE, started work at the company in 2002— the same year The Storied Life of Millie Benson was being made as a Toledo Stories documentary. The documentary got national distribution because of Benson’s fame as the writer, under the pseudonym “Carolyn Keene” for Stratemeyer Syndicate. Ben-
son wrote 23 of the first 30 Nancy Drew Mysteries, all bestsellers, from 1929 to
1953.

Kamenca explains that the documentary is so much more than just the Nancy Drew stories, “it starts when she was young in Iowa. At school she was a top athlete, and at a time when not every girl was doing those things, her innate spirit was ‘I’m going to achieve.’ She went to the University of Iowa and got her journalism degree in only 3 years which was just unheard of. She really believed women could do anything and she did those things. She loved writing and she loved writing Nancy Drew.” Kamenca adds that Benson didn’t own all the rights to Nancy Drew, but she went on to write other series of books from 1939 to 1947 under her own name, Mildred Wirt. The character of Penny Parker was part Nancy Drew and partially from her personality. A prolific write, Benson wrote over 100 books, many under several other pseudonyms.

Sun, Jan. 19 3-5pm
Nederhouser Community Hall, Olander Park, 6930 Sylvania Ave. Tickets at star-
litetheatergroup.org or at the door. Presented in cooperation with Outdoor Sylvania Community Parks, WGTE and Heritage Sylvania.

On January 19 Starlite Theater Group will celebrate 95 years of Nancy Drew and Mildred Wirt Benson, aka Carolyn Keene, with two screenings of the 1939 film Nancy Drew & The Hidden Staircase starring Bonita Granville as Nancy. There will be a screening for kids with Nancy themed activities in the afternoon, and a second, evening screening for adults, also featuring WGTE’s documentary The Storied Life of Millie Benson. Benson shares a special connection with Toledo. She lived and worked here for much of her adult life until she
passed away at the age of 96 in 2002.

Millie Benson, Nancy Drew and The Greatest Generation

Born in Ladora Iowa in 1905, Benson was born into The Greatest Generation— the generation that defined mod- ern society as we know it; A post WW1 generation that survived a world war and an epidemic that killed a third of the world’s population. A rebel generation, they rejected everything that the generation before stood for. Women got the vote, broke free of corsets and never looked back.

The first Nancy Drew books were published in 1930, which means Millie and Nancy came into their own at the time of the first talking pictures and the era of pre-Code films in 1930-1934. In those early days of Hollywood, films were not yet censored and many of its finest actresses (Joan Crawford, Kay Francis, Norma Shearer, and Barbara Stanwyck to name a few) were choosing roles that depicted them as career women, adventurers and the captains of their own lives. Their generation roared and defined modern life as we know it.

Millie Benson in Toledo

Cathy Kamenca, the Engagement Coordinator and TV Programmer at
WGTE, started work at the company in 2002— the same year The Storied Life of Millie Benson was being made as a Toledo Stories documentary. The documentary got national distribution because of Benson’s fame as the writer, under the pseudonym “Carolyn Keene” for Stratemeyer Syndicate. Ben-
son wrote 23 of the first 30 Nancy Drew Mysteries, all bestsellers, from 1929 to
1953.

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Kamenca explains that the documentary is so much more than just the Nancy Drew stories, “it starts when she was young in Iowa. At school she was a top athlete, and at a time when not every girl was doing those things, her innate spirit was ‘I’m going to achieve.’ She went to the University of Iowa and got her journalism degree in only 3 years which was just unheard of. She really believed women could do anything and she did those things. She loved writing and she loved writing Nancy Drew.” Kamenca adds that Benson didn’t own all the rights to Nancy Drew, but she went on to write other series of books from 1939 to 1947 under her own name, Mildred Wirt. The character of Penny Parker was part Nancy Drew and partially from her personality. A prolific write, Benson wrote over 100 books, many under several other pseudonyms.

Sun, Jan. 19 3-5pm
Nederhouser Community Hall, Olander Park, 6930 Sylvania Ave. Tickets at star-
litetheatergroup.org or at the door. Presented in cooperation with Outdoor Sylvania Community Parks, WGTE and Heritage Sylvania.

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