Cobina Wright

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title: "Cobina Wright" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1887-births", "1970-deaths", "actresses-from-oregon", "american-socialites", "american-film-actresses", "american-stage-actresses", "american-operatic-sopranos", "people-from-lakeview,-oregon", "20th-century-american-actresses", "singers-from-oregon", "20th-century-american-singers", "20th-century-american-women-singers", "classical-musicians-from-oregon"] description: "American singer, actress, and newspaper columnist" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobina_Wright" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary American singer, actress, and newspaper columnist ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox person"]

Field	Value
name	Cobina Wright, Sr.
image	Cobina Wright 1949.JPG
caption	Wright's 1949 column photo
birth_name	Esther Ellen Cobb
birth_date
birth_place	Lakeview, Oregon, U.S.
death_date
death_place	Los Angeles, California, U.S.
other_names
occupation	Opera singer and actress
known_for	Syndicated gossip column
::

| name = Cobina Wright, Sr. | image = Cobina Wright 1949.JPG | alt = | caption = Wright's 1949 column photo | birth_name = Esther Ellen Cobb | birth_date = | birth_place = Lakeview, Oregon, U.S. | death_date = | death_place = Los Angeles, California, U.S. | nationality = | other_names = | occupation = Opera singer and actress | years_active = | known_for = Syndicated gossip column | notable_works =

**Cobina Wright, Sr. ** (born Esther Ellen Cobb, September 20, 1887 – April 9, 1970) was an American opera singer and actress who appeared in The Razor's Edge (1946). She gained later fame as a hostess and a syndicated gossip columnist for King Features Syndicate. Wright was also known as Esther Cobb, Esther Johnson, and Esther Cobina.

Biography

She was born on September 20, 1887, in Lakeview, Oregon to Benjamin M. Cobb and Della Holmes (1861—1943).

She married and divorced twice. Her first husband, whom she married in 1912, was American novelist Owen Johnson; she was his second wife, and they divorced in 1917. Her second husband was William May Wright, a stockbroker, by whom she had one child, a daughter, Cobina Carolyn Wright (aka Cobina Wright Jr.), (1921—2011), briefly a movie actress. the Wrights were divorced in 1935.

In the early part of the 20th century, she was a coloratura soprano, using the stage name Esther Cobina. She had studied singing in California, under voice teacher Nettie Snyder, and in Germany, where she initially pursued her career on stage. During World War I, she performed for French and American troops in Europe. She later made her American opera debut at Carnegie Hall in 1924.

She died in Los Angeles, California in 1970.

Legacy

Wright was the author of a memoir titled I Never Grew Up (Prentice-Hall, 1952).https://web.archive.org/web/20101125214203/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,822184,00.html

Filmography

::data[format=table]

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1943	Danger! Women at Work	Regina
1944	Sweethearts of the U.S.A.	Mrs. Josephine Carver
1946	The Razor's Edge	Princess Novemali
::

References

References

1. U. S. Federal Census of 1910, accessed on ancestry.com on 3 November 2011
2. "Owen Johnson Married", ''The New York Times'', 2 February 1912
3. Full name and also-known-as name cited in ''International Motion Picture Almanac'' (TK, 1948), page 416
4. (1941-02-17). "Life Magazine". Cover Browser.
5. (1935-02-11). "Women: Full Dress".
6. "Owen Wilson Recovered", ''Berkeley Daily Gazette'', 27 September 1912
7. "Owen Johnson Married", ''The New York Times'', 2 February 1912
8. Rockwell Dennis Hunt and Nellie Van Der Grift Sanchez, ''California and Californians'' (The Lewis Publishing Company, 1930), page 180
9. "Owen Johnson Married", ''The New York Times'', 2 February 1912
10. ''Lake County Examiner'', 15 November 1917
11. (11 April 1970). "Cobina Wright, Society Hostess And Hollywood Columnist, Dies; Former Waldorf Aide Made Her U.S. Opera Debut at Carnegie Hall in 1924". [[The New York Times]].

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::