Trivia

She almost died on March 5, 1945 when her mother, Bess Merkel, committed suicide by turning on the gas. Her suicide note was personalized to Una's husband, Robert Burla, whom she affectionately addressed as "Bid".

During the filming of True Confession (1937) she rescued a movie property man Arthur Camp from drowning at Lake Arrowhead, California, when the backwash from her motorboat upset his skiff. She caught his suspenders with a boat hook then held his head above the water until help arrived from the shore as Camp was unable to swim.

She was originally signed for the title role in Blondie (1938) but was replaced before filming began.

She was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6230 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on February 8, 1960.

Merkel's father and Lee DeForest raised $250,000 for the patent on talking pictures but lost it to Warner Bros. because neither had "an ounce of business sense" according to Miss Merkel.

Following her death, she was interred near her parents, Arno and Bess Merkel, at Highland Cemetery in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky.

Merkel appeared, in different roles, in two versions of the same movie: "The Merry Widow (1934)" with Jeanette Macdonald and Maurice Chevalier, and, more than seventeen years later, "The Merry Widow (1952)" with Lana Turner and Fernando Lamas.

Merkel had a vaudeville act before she entered films.

She got a couple of prime early roles because she reportedly looked like Lillian Gish, "World Shadows" with Charles Ray and "Abraham Lincoln" for D.W. Griffith.

D. W. Griffith had Merkel take a test to play Mary Todd in his version of "Abraham Lincoln," and United Artists signed her to a one year contract. However, when she arrived to start shooting, he decided that he now wanted her to play Ann Rutledge. Kay Hammond ultimately played the First Lady.

Won the Tony award (1956) as Best Featured Actress in a Play for "The Ponder Heart," a novella written by Eudora Welty and illustrated by Joe Krush, originally published in The New Yorker magazine in 1953, then was republished by Harcourt Brace in 1954. The plot of "The Ponder Heart" follows Daniel Ponder, a wealthy heir, and is told through the narration of Edna Earle Ponder, Daniel's niece. In 1956, the story was made into a Broadway play by Joseph Fields and Jerome Chodorov. Una Merkel won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play in 1956 for her portrayal of Edna Earle Ponder.

Her name was pronounced U-nah MER-cull.

Most of her roles was being good friend of the leading actress.

Father: (Albert) Arno Merkel born May 9, 1882 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Died December 23, 1969 in Los Angeles, California. Mother: Bessie Phares Merkel died in New York City on March 5, 1945. She was 61 years old. Interred in Covington, Kentucky.