A Look Back at Child Star Darla Hood ('Our Gang'/'Little Rascals'): 45 Years After Her Tragic Death

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It's been forty-five years since former child star Darla Hood, best known for the classic Our Gang/Little Rascals film shorts, died tragically of a heart attack at only 47 years old in Canoga Park, CA. This is her story.

A Closer Look

In June of 1979, Darla Hood was organizing an Our Gang/Little Rascals reunion for the Los Angeles chapter of The Sons of the Desert club when she underwent an appendectomy at Canoga Park Hospital. Following the procedure, Hood passed away unexpectedly from heart failure on June 13, 1979. An autopsy revealed she had contracted Hepatitis C from a contaminated blood transfusion during her surgery which led to her demise.

In the Beginning

Darla Hood was born in Leedey, Oklahoma on November 8, 1931, to James Claude Hood Jr., a banker, and Elizabeth Davner Hood, who encouraged her musical abilities with singing and dancing lessons in Oklahoma City.

At a subsequent impromptu musical debut at Edison Hotel in Times Square, the band invited a then-4-year-old Darla onto the stage to the audience's delight. Joe Rivkin, an agent of Hal Roach (producer of the Our Gang/Little Rascals films), noticed Darla, gave her a screen test, and signed her to a 7-year contract (at $75 per week).

Then Came Stardom Followed By Heartache

Darla Hood soon appeared in the first of over 50 short films in the Roach wheelhouse. However, she was lonely behind the scenes, as most of her on-screen peers were boys, who kept busy playing sports. She would also later face career struggles in her teens.

After graduating with honors from Hollywood's Fairfax High School, Hood was hired for a few performances for Ken Murray's popular Blackbirds live variety show in Los Angeles, and for some gigs behind the scenes.

2 Weddings, 1 Divorce, and 5 Kids Later

At 17, Darla Hood wed Robert W. Decker, and formed Darla Hood and the Enchanters, a vocal band that provided background music for now-classic movies like A Letter to Three Wives (1949). She also performed in nightclubs and on TV variety shows like Paul Whitman's Goodtime Revue, and radio shows hosted by future-talk-show king Merv Griffin.

Hood also lent her voice to animated productions and Campbell Soup and Chicken of the Sea TV commercials (as the Mermaid). In the process, she became an impressive impressionist and trick voice artist.

In June 1957, a 25-year-old Hood divorced Decker, with whom she had two children, and swiftly wed Jose Granson (her former manager, and a musical publisher), and had three more children.

Nearly four decades later, in the last four months of her life, Hood reprised her most famous role in the 1979 animated TV production, The Little Rascals' Christmas Special.

Unfortunately, she did not live to see it.

An Unhappy Ending

As with many child stars and former child stars, before, during, or after her, Darla Hood found that life in the Hollywood spotlight does not always ensure happiness or a bright future.