Evelyn Marjorie Baldwin, the second wife of renowned film director D.W. Griffith, was born on February 24, 1910, in College Point, Queens County, New York, making her a part of the 1910 United States Census. She was the third of four children born to Captain Robert Albert Baldwin and Sarah (Cottrell) Baldwin, and her father, a captain of an oyster harvesting boat, tragically lost his life in 1927 when his sloop sank during a severe storm, his body never recovered.
Evelyn's early life was marked by a chance encounter with D.W. Griffith, her future first husband, at a charity event at the Astor Hotel in New York City, where she was around 16 or 17 years old and Griffith was the guest of honor.
She pursued a career in stage performance, and it was not long after D.W. Griffith's divorce from his first wife, actress Linda Arvidson, that he married Evelyn Baldwin in 1936. The couple divorced in 1947, and they did not have any children together.
Evelyn's second marriage was to Werner P. Kunze, and she appeared as herself in a documentary about D.W. Griffith under the name "Evelyn Baldwin Kunze." Werner passed away in 2002, and Evelyn followed suit in 2004. She was laid to rest alongside her second husband in Lew Beach Cemetery, Lew Beach, Sullivan County, New York.
Genealogically, Evelyn was a descendant of a long line of Baldwins tracing back to John Baldwin of the Hale (1490-1556). As a result, she had many famous 21st-century actors, actresses, and performers as cousins, including the Baldwin brothers (Alec, Daniel, William, and Stephen),Bill Cosby Jr., and Beyoncé Knowles, all descended from John Baldwin of the Hale. She also had many other famous cousins, such as Mark and Donald Wahlberg.
