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- Sandra Wells was born on 27 February 1936 in the USA. She is an actress, known for The Wild Wild West (1965), My Brother the Angel (1965) and Batman (1966).
- Actress
- Additional Crew
Evelyne Séléna was born in 1935. She is an actress, known for La parole est au témoin (1963), Ulysse 31 (1981) and My Wife's Husband (1963).- Actress
- Soundtrack
Born in France in July 1934, Monique Lemaire was a singer and came to England in 1958 to improve her English. She then moved to New York in 1960 and studied with Lee Strasberg at the Carnegie Hall. She appeared in several TV shows in New York and then moved to Hollywood in 1962 where she worked as an actress until 1966. That year, she returned to England and married. Her daughter, Chantal, was born two years later. Monique Lemaire is still living in London and works in the family business.- Fawn Silver is known for Terror in the Jungle (1968), Unkissed Bride (1966) and Legend of Horror (1971).
- Actress
- Writer
Liane Aukin was born on 17 August 1936 in London, England, UK. She was an actress and writer, known for The Avengers (1961), Detective (1964) and Sherlock Holmes (1964). She was married to Robin Midgley. She died on 18 August 2016.- Tania Alvarado is known for Il corsaro (1970), Death of a Bureaucrat (1966) and Dig Your Grave Friend... Sabata's Coming (1971).
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Vitina was born Dolores Vitina Marcus in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, of Sicilian and Hungarian parentage to Frank Marcus and his wife Rose. In her teens, she studied ballet, learned to play the violin and worked briefly as a model for the Huntington Hartford Agency. At the age of 17, she began taking classes at Lee Strasberg's Actor's Studio. Adopting the first name of her Sicilian grandmother, she made her screen debut as Dolores Vitina, one of sixteen female dancers comprising The June Taylor Dancers, featured weekly on The Jackie Gleason Show (1952). Her motion picture debut followed soon after in the crime drama Never Love a Stranger (1958).
Between 1959 and 1970, Vitina appeared in many a classic TV show, her exotic, sultry looks ideally suited for casting as Native Americans: in Have Gun - Will Travel (1957) (as Della White Cloud, an Apache princess), in Death Valley Days (1952), Rawhide (1959), Gunsmoke (1955) and in The Virginian (1962). As a 'female Tarzan', she captured Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn) in an episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964), set in Africa. As Kublai Khan's daughter, she was wooed by James Darren in The Time Tunnel (1966). After her introduction to producer Irwin Allen, sometime around 1959 or 1960, Vitina was often featured in Allen's fantasy or science fiction-themed productions. Her characters were regularly menaced by dinosaurs, phantoms and giant spiders, painted gold, or, more famously, green. Stranger still, was her romantic pursuit of the nefarious and cowardly Dr. Zachary Smith (Jonathan Harris) in the Lost in Space (1965) episode 'The Girl from the Green Dimension'. Her role as Athena, aka 'The Green Lady', has remained the one for which she is most fondly remembered and is also her own personal favorite.
After her retirement from acting in 1970, Vitina moved to Las Vegas. She worked for some time as a cocktail waitress before becoming a real estate broker under her married name Vitina Graham.- Thordis Brandt was born in Germany of Norwegian and German parents. She moved to Canada as a young girl and was raised there. After school, where she completed a University degree in nursing, she moved to Santa Monica, California. As she pursued acting and dancing as careers, she continued to practice her nursing in private duty. One of her jobs in private duty was serving actress Patricia Neal. Ms. Neal recommended Thordis to other actors and actresses, thus Thordis became known as the "actor's nurse." After retiring from acting, she continued nursing in Beverly Hills.
- Lenore Stevens was born on 5 January 1943 in the USA. She is an actress, known for Beyond Atlantis (1973), Bonnie's Kids (1972) and Victims (1982). She was previously married to Richard Mulligan.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Susan Hampshire, the English actress who has won three Emmy Awards, was born in Kensington, London on May 12, 1937. Her original ambition was to be a nurse, but she could not pass her O-Level exam in Latin. (She found out when she was 30 years old that she was dyslexic, and her work on dyslexia subsequently brought her the Officer of the British Empire award.) She decided to become an actress and gained training in the theater. She made her movie debut, at 10 years old, in The Woman in the Hall (1947) but her proper debut was in the Laurence Harvey picture, Expresso Bongo (1959), in 1958. Her career has never faltered.
Hampshire made a name for herself in her native Britain, appearing in Katy (1962) on TV in 1962 for the BBC. Walt Disney signed her to star in the 1964 family picture, The Three Lives of Thomasina (1963), but it was her role in the 1967 BBC mini-series, The Forsyte Saga (1967), that made her famous and won her the first of her three Emmy Awards. Shown in the United States on the precursor to PBS, the great popularity of the series led the new PBS to create Masterpiece (1971). The First Churchills (1969), in which Hampshire played "Sarah Churchill", was the first series offered on "Masterpiece Theater" and brought her her second Emmy. In 1973, she won her third, playing "Becky Sharp" in Vanity Fair (1967), for a mini-series that had been released in the UK in 1967.
Susan Hampshire has continued to be active on television and in the theater. She has been married to her second husband, the theatrical impresario, Sir Eddie Kulukundis, since 1981.- Catherine Ferrar was born on 22 October 1946 in Waterbury, Connecticut, USA. She is an actress, known for Days of Our Lives (1965), Night Gallery (1969) and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964).
- Actress
- Soundtrack
- Aurora de Alba is known for Raise Your Hands, Dead Man, You're Under Arrest (1971), Crime Story (1968) and La alegre caravana (1953).
- The dark, fiery, unconventionally lovely Lita Milan was a pleasant distraction in "B" movie crimers, westerns and action adventures and made a brief mark during the 1950's. Humbly born Iris Maria Lia Menshell in Brooklyn, New York in 1933, she was the younger of two girls born to a Hungarian salesman and a Polish homemaker. Raised in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, she trained in dance as a child and broke into show biz as a Las Vegas chorine. Immediately noticed, she began supplementing her modest income as a cover girl model in such magazines as Photo and Night & Day.
Against her parent's wishes, young Iris decided to conquer Hollywood, making an inauspicious film debut as a nurse in the "B" crime drama The Big Chase (1954). She was then given a bit part in the western Duel on the Mississippi (1955) and a featured role in the western The Violent Men (1955) where she acquired the new marquee name of "Lita Milan." Around the same time, Lita began to appear as spitfire foreign types on such TV programs as "The Lone Wolf," "Public Defender," "It's a Great Life" and "Damon Runyon Theatre."
Dubbed a "Wampas Baby Star" for publicity attention in 1956 (along with close friend Fay Spain), the smoldering beauty found herself immediately pigeon-holed as senoritas, Indian maidens and other exotics in outdoor films. She received her first interesting film role as a firebrand South American revolutionary disguised as a lounge singer opposite federal agent Dane Clark in the crime drama The Toughest Man Alive (1955). She also played "Alita" in the French Foreign Legion actioneer Desert Sands (1955) starring Ralph Meeker while adding a sexy flair as the Indian "Meteetsee" in the western Gun Brothers (1956) starring Buster Crabbe. Given the feminine lead alongside Anthony Quinn in another "B" western, The Ride Back (1957), as Quinn's incendiary fiancée, she followed this as Peter Graves' Cajun distraction in the backwoods drama Bayou (1957) and as James Craig's captured Indian chief's wife in the western Naked in the Sun (1957).
Several flavorful TV roles came to Lita during this time on such adventure shows as "Tales of the 77th Bengal Lancers," "The Count of Monte Cristo," "Whirlybirds" and "The Adventures of Jim Bowie," along with roles in some light-hearted sitcoms ("The Bob Cummings Show" and "Burns & Allen").
Lita's best-remembered film role is as the sexy Mexican Celsa opposite a rising Paul Newman in the classic western The Left Handed Gun (1958). Newman's potent portrayal of the boyish, revengeful Billy the Kid received inspired reviews. Lita followed this effort as one of an all-female crime ring (the French member) in the exploitation flick Girls on the Loose (1958) along with Mara Corday, Joyce Barker and Abby Dalton, and also played "bad boy" John Drew Barrymore's girl in the crime syndicate drama Never Love a Stranger (1958).
Lita's final movie role had her co-starring with handsome Steve Cochran in Roger Corman's low-budget feature I Mobster (1959). Following a recurring role as Marlene in the TV series The Adventures of Hiram Holliday (1956) starring meek Wally Cox, Lita shocked the country in 1958 when she abruptly abandoned her acting career and disappeared from sight with Ramfis Trujillo, the playboy son of the notorious Dominican Republic dictator, Rafael Trujillo. They would marry in 1960. Her husband seized power of the republic after the assassination of his father in 1961, but the couple were forced to flee the country soon after. She gave birth to sons Ramses and Ricardo.
Living in exile in Madrid, Spain, Lita remained there after the 1969 death of her husband following the fatal crash of his Ferrari. He left her very wealthy. She lived an avid partying lifestyle for a time, but, in later years, was little seen. Tragically, her father, living in the New York area, was accosted and murdered by a thief in the late 1970's. - Actress
- Additional Crew
Miriam Colon was born on 20 August 1936 in Ponce, Puerto Rico. She was an actress, known for Scarface (1983), Sabrina (1995) and Goal! The Dream Begins (2005). She was married to Fred Valle, George Paul Edgar and ???. She died on 3 March 2017 in New York City, New York, USA.- Blonde Janine Gray was born Janine Catherine Glass in Bombay, India, the daughter of an oil company engineer. Her family moved back to England when she was five. By the age of 13, Janine took drama classes and did her first screen acting gigs in TV commercials three years later. She spent several more years honing her skills in repertory theatre in Worthing and Nottingham. In 1959, she had a small guest spot in the crime drama Dial 999 (1958). Subsequently signed by the ITV franchise holder Associated British Rediffusion, Janine enjoyed better supporting roles in some of the popular TV series of the day, especially spy and crime shows like Danger Man (1960), The Saint (1962), The Avengers (1961) and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964). Her sole starring turn on the big screen was in the John Gilling-directed B-grade crime melodrama Panic (1963), which had Janine playing a Swiss miss unwittingly involved in a London diamond heist. Her other featured role of note was as James Mason 's wife in Harold Pinter 's marital soap opera The Pumpkin Eater (1964).
Janine's first marriage in 1962 was to automobile executive and former Olympic long-distance runner Herman Goffberg. Though this union ended in divorce, she remained based in California from 1964 until 1969. During this tenure, Janine made a number of guest appearances in episodes of popular TV shows like Get Smart (1965) (as a nefarious KAOS agent), Bewitched (1964) (as Abigail, personal secretary to Samantha's warlock father Maurice), The Wild Wild West (1965) (Crystal, a murder victim) and Hogan's Heroes (1965) (as Greta, a member of the 'underground').
After her departure from the world of screen acting, Janine established a new permanent home in Cape Town, South Africa, with her second husband, the eye surgeon Dr. Brian Peter Greaves. - Actress
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Judi West was born on 20 May 1939 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. She is an actress, known for The Fortune Cookie (1966), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964) and Coronet Blue (1967). She was previously married to John Rubinstein.- Highly accomplished American stage and screen actress, director, dancer and musician. Hailing from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, she is the daughter of builder/farmer Arnold John Jens and his Polish-born wife Salomea Szujeuska (after whom she was named). Her sister Arnette Jens is married to the well-known character actor Anthony Zerbe.
Jens attended the University of Wisconsin and later majored in drama at Northwestern University. Her first foray into acting was with the Swan Theatre in her home town (now the Milwaukee Repertory Theater). Already an accomplished pianist by the time she moved to New York, Jens was at first undecided as to which branch of the arts to pursue. She thus went on to study dance under Martha Graham, as well as acting with Stella Adler and at Herbert Berghof's studio in Greenwich Village. Having decided on the acting profession, Jens moved on to Lee Strasberg's Actor's Studio (of which she became a Lifetime Member in 1962), while at the same time making ends meet working as a secretary. Her Broadway stage debut duly followed in 1956 with a part in Sixth Finger in a Five Finger Glove.
This was the beginning of a prolific and critically acclaimed theatrical career, both on and off-Broadway in famous plays like Jean Genet 's The Balcony and (as Josie) in Eugene O'Neill 's A Moon for the Misbegotten. Her other performing highlights on the Great White Way have included roles in A Far Country (as Sigmund Freud 's wife, Martha Bernays Freud), Tartuffe (as Elmire) and the title role of Mary Stuart in 1971. For the Repertory Theatre of Lincoln Center, Jens appeared in Arthur Miller's After the Fall. In addition to larger West Coast venues like the Mark Taper Forum, Jens has more recently acted on the smaller stages in Los Angeles. Besides her busy performing career, she has also taught for many years at UCLA's theater department. Surprisingly, she found time for a substantial career in films and television as well.
On screen from 1956, Jens has often played off-beat characters, none more so than her inscrutable Female Changeling, head of the despotic Dominion and a primary antagonist in TV's Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993) (her daily make-up for the role took two hours to apply). Earlier in her career, she had starred in the torrid southern drama Angel Baby (1961) (credited as 'Miss Salomé Jens) which marked the film debut of Burt Reynolds, and played the romantic interest of the surgically altered, 'reborn' Rock Hudson in the powerful psychological thriller Seconds (1966). She said in an interview "I was never an ingénue. I've always been fortunate to be somebody who could never be pigeonholed. I was able to do a lot of different things." Those 'different things' have included appearances in Tales from the Crypt (1989), The Outer Limits (1963), The Untouchables (1959), Superboy (1988) (as Clark Kent's mother, Martha) and the voice of the female Guardian in DC's Green Lantern (2011), among a host of others shows and TV movies. She has had recurring roles in the spoof series Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976), as well as in Falcon Crest (1981), L.A. Law (1986) and Melrose Place (1992).
Salome Jens was twice married, first to tough guy actor Ralph Meeker and later to radio and TV personality Lee Leonard. In her private life she keeps fit by walking and doing weights. She has latterly attended Comic Con events in the U.S. and abroad. - Actress Patricia Blair was born on January 15, 1933, in Fort Worth, Texas, but grew up in Dallas. She first entered the world of entertainment as a young teenage model, eventually represented by the Conover Agency. She apprenticed in summer stock before Warner Bros. discovered her for films after catching some alluring cheesecake shots of her.
The highly photogenic lady did the starlet route starting out with the stage moniker of "Patricia Blake." She appeared as a second female lead in such standard filming as Jump Into Hell (1955), Crime Against Joe (1956), The Black Sleep (1956), which reunited horror icons Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney Jr., Basil Rathbone and John Carradine and the suspenser City of Fear (1959) opposite Vince Edwards, but not much came out of this promise. True to form, she later did a TV pilot entitled "Tramp Ship" opposite Neville Brand but it did not sell.
Better things started happening in the early 1960s. She came in for a season in a semi-regular role on The Rifleman (1958) replacing actress Joan Taylor as a spunky love interest for Chuck Connors. In 1964, she was just about to relocate to New York when screenwriter Gordon Chase submitted her name for the female lead in the series Daniel Boone (1964) as "Rebecca Boone", the wife of Fess Parker's legendary outdoorsman. She won the part and stayed with the show for six profitable seasons.
Patricia also made numerous late 50s and 60s TV appearances with such guest credits on The Bob Cummings Show (1955), The Virginian (1962), Perry Mason (1957) and Bonanza (1959), among others. Little heard of following the demise of the Daniel Boone (1964) TV series in 1970, she appeared in a few minor films and TV spots before dropping completely out of sight. She was last seen on film in a small role in The Electric Horseman (1979) and an isolated part on a 1988 episode of "Me and My Girl."
In later years, Patricia produced trade shows in New York and New Jersey. Diagnosed with breast cancer, she died in New Jersey on September 9, 2013, at age 80. - Actress
- Soundtrack
Marta Romero was born on 17 February 1928 in Ponce, Puerto Rico. She was an actress, known for Maruja (1959), El retrato de Ángela (1966) and La sombra del murciélago (1968). She was married to Dr. Elías Najul. She died on 31 May 2013 in San Juan, Puerto Rico.- Former Miss California (1964) who appeared in a few Hollywood films before relocating to Mexico and making 24 films in just three years (1966-68). She then dropped out of sight, making an aborted comeback attempt in 1971-72. Although her dialogue was almost always dubbed into Spanish, the beautiful Chabot was one of the most popular screen actresses of this period, usually playing a stereotyped "sexy American blonde". Chabot is now a real-estate agent in California.
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- Soundtrack
María Duval was born in Querétaro and later moved to Mexico City, where she began appearing in television and theatre productions. She made her film debut in the musical Melodías inolvidables (1959). By 1961, she had recorded several albums and was studying tirelessly to enhance her promising film career. Over the next few years she became one of the most sought-after actresses of the '60s cinema of Mexico. She worked with various popular stars more than twice: with Santo in Santo vs. the Vampire Women (1962), Santo vs. the Strangler (1965), and Santo vs. the Ghost of the Strangler (1966); with Marco Antonio Campos and Gaspar Henaine (Viruta and Capulina) in Barridos y regados (1963), Cada quién su lucha (1966), and La cigüeña distraída (1966); and with Antonio Aguilar in Gabino Barrera (1965), Juan Colorado (1966), and Los alegres Aguilares (1967). She reached the peak of her career in 1966, the year in which seven of her films were released.- Pina Pellicer was, and still is, one of the most beloved Mexican actresses of all time. She set a standard for realism in a time when "melodrama" and "artificial" acting still ran rampant. She was best known for her groundbreaking performance in One-Eyed Jacks (1961) with Marlon Brando. She is greatly missed. Fans still wonder why she left us so soon. Perhaps next of kin will continue her magnificent tradition.
- Actress
- Music Department
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Rosita Arenas was born on 19 August 1933 in Caracas, Venezuela. She is an actress, known for Los chiflados del rock and roll (1957), Three and a Half Musketeers (1957) and The Aztec Mummy (1957).- Begoña Palacios married the film director Sam Peckinpah (1925-1984) when he was filming Major Dundee (1965) in Mexico. A very young and beautiful actress and dancer became the second wife of this controversial movie maker. They had a daughter Maria Guadalupe Peckinpah Palacios (better known as Lupita Peckinpah). When Begoña died on March 1st 2000, she requested that her ashes were thrown to Malibu beach where Peckinpah's remains are.
- Diana Lorys was born on 20 October 1940 in Madrid, Spain. She is an actress, known for O.K. Yevtushenko (1967), Proceso a Jesús (1974) and Residencia para espías (1968).
- Eunice Gayson was an English actress best known for playing Sylvia Trench, James Bond's girlfriend in the first two Bond films (Dr. No and From Russia with Love). Originally, Gayson was to be cast as Miss Moneypenny, but that part went to Lois Maxwell instead.
Gayson was originally to have been a regular in the Bond film series, but her character was dropped. Gayson's voice in Dr. No and From Russia with Love was overdubbed by voice actress Nikki van der Zyl, as were the voices of nearly all the actresses appearing in the first two Bond films, though Gayson's real voice can still be heard in original trailers for Dr. No.
As the first female to be seen in Dr. No together with James Bond (Sean Connery), she is officially the very first actress to play a Bond girl.
Decades later, Gayson's daughter appeared in a casino scene in the 1995 Bond film GoldenEye.
She also starred in the Hammer horror film The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958).
Gayson died on 8 June 2018, aged 90. - Madeleine Fischer was born on 12 November 1935 in Romanshorn, Thurgau, Switzerland. She was an actress, known for The Girlfriends (1955), L'ultima canzone (1960) and Lazzarella (1957). She died on 8 April 2020 in Gubbio, Umbria, Perugia, Italy.
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Marilù Tolo was born on 16 January 1943 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She is an actress, known for Marriage Italian Style (1964), Espionage in Lisbon (1965) and Eneide (1971).- Actress
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Dorothee Parker was born on 11 March 1938 in Cologne, Germany. She is an actress and assistant director, known for Horrors of Spider Island (1960), Das Mädchen mit den schmalen Hüften (1961) and Die Insel der Amazonen (1960).- Adriana Ambesi was born on 18 April 1940 in Turin, Italy. She was an actress, known for Hercules the Avenger (1965), Secret Agent Super Dragon (1966) and Crypt of the Vampire (1964). She died on 28 February 2023 in Rome, Italy.
- Sally Douglas was born on 30 November 1941 in Lancashire, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Brian Rix Presents ... (1960), Sebastian (1968) and Secret Agent (1964). She died in September 2001.
- Full name - Nicholetta Rangoni Machiavelli. The first role in the movie - Domenikangela Piras in the film of Luigi Zampa "The Question of Honor" (1965). In 1969, she was nominated for the German Academy Award as the best actress in the film "How Much Does a Man Need?" / Scarabea - wieviel Erde braucht der Mensch? " (1969). Machiavelli played in the films of Italian and French directors - Alberto Lattuada, Liliana Cavani, Carlo Lizzani, Dino Risi, Andrzej Zoulawski, Georges Lautner. After the year 1983, she did not act in films. In 1978 she became an adherent of Osho's teachings, lived in Rajnespuram ( USA). In 1985 she settled in Seattle (USA), where she taught in the college and gave private lessons in the Italian language. She passed away on November 15, 2015 in Seattle, Washington, USA.
- Actress
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
She won a beauty pageant and attended il Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia (The Center for Experimental Cinematography). In 1956, she received an offer to go to Hollywood and attend the Actor's Studio but didn't take the offer for undisclosed reasons.
She began her film career at the age of 15 with a role in the film I pinguini ci guardano (1955) (The Penguins Watch Us) in which the animals at the zoo watched the humans around them and cultivated some very interesting thoughts. Many sources, however, list her first film as Mogli pericolose (1958). She is uncredited in this comedy which was directed by Luigi Comencini.
Neri was also much in demand for erotic films. She played Zoe, in Jesús Franco's 99 Women (1969), a movie about women in prison who must turn to each other for comfort while dealing with a sadistic warden. In 1971 she was Eleanor Stuart, Farley Granger's 'wife' in Amuck! (1972).- Actress
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
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Elsa Martinelli was born in the central Tuscan city of Grosseto into a struggling family, one of eight siblings. She had to earn her keep from the age of twelve, delivering groceries in Rome. Looking older than her years suggested, she then did some part-time work as a barmaid. Aged sixteen and ambitious, she moved on to modeling and was soon promoted by well known designers, and, in particular, by a New York magazine editor who suggested a move to the Big Apple. While employed with the Eileen Ford Agency, she was spotted on a Life magazine cover by none other than Kirk Douglas (or by Douglas' wife, according to another version of the story) who, incidentally, happened to own a fashion company. In any case, Elsa soon found herself in Hollywood to co-star opposite Douglas in The Indian Fighter (1955) (despite some as yet unresolved problems with her command of English). Her sojourn in tinseltown was short-lived, however, and the contract she had signed with Douglas was quietly annulled -- and thus she famously spurned an opportunity to appear in the lucrative blockbuster Spartacus (1960). There were to be no further American pictures at this time. Instead, she returned to Italy, married Count Franco Mancinelli Scotti di San Vito, joined the glitterati, attended lavish parties and created an image for herself which rivaled those of Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida. She counted Aristotle Onassis and Maria Callas among her close friends.
Taken under the wing of Carlo Ponti, Elsa was able to eventually make a success of her screen career not merely because of her exotic good looks, but by deliberately varying the type of parts she took on and thereby avoid typecasting. Those included the titular Stowaway Girl (1957) who bewitches an embittered steamboat captain played by Trevor Howard. In stark contrast, she was also Carmilla, possessed by her vampiric ancestor Millarca in the unsatisfactorily filmed Blood and Roses (1960), an 'arthouse' horror movie, though artlessly directed by Roger Vadim, based on Sheridan Le Fanu's Gothic novella. Encumbered by excessive bathos, neither scary nor original, the only saving grace of the picture was derived from Claude Renoir's evocative camera work.
In Hatari! (1962) -- which might aptly be described as a good-looking travelogue -- Elsa co-starred as a freelance wildlife photographer on a Tanganyika game farm, torn between affections for baby elephants and 'bring-'em-back-alive' trapper John Wayne. With character development sorely lacking, the animals, the scenery (and two exquisitely ornamental ladies -- the other being Michèle Girardon) pretty much stole the show. Likewise, in her next outing, the wartime comedy The Pigeon That Took Rome (1962), Elsa was the romantic (mostly decorative) interest of Charlton Heston's army guy smuggled into Nazi-occupied Rome in 1944 to extract and send back secret military information via carrier pigeon. For the remainder of the '60s, Elsa appeared in a number of international co-productions which included a segment in The Oldest Profession (1967) as a Roman Emperor's wife discovered in a brothel; and as a gangster's daughter helping a bumbling American treasury agent in Rome (played by Dustin Hoffman in his first starring role) to recover Madigan's Millions (1968).
In 1968, Elsa married Paris Match photographer and furniture designer Willy Rizzo. Having already invested some of her earnings from film work into Roman and Parisian real estate, Elsa began to diversify into designing avant garde furniture with apparently mixed success. By the 1980s, she was active as an interior designer in Rome while still making sporadic screen appearances, primarily in TV series. Described by the newspaper La Repubblica as "an icon of style and elegance", Elsa Martinelli died on July 8, 2017 in Rome at the age of 82.- Giovanna Ralli was born on 2 January 1935 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She is an actress and writer, known for We All Loved Each Other So Much (1974), The Mercenary (1968) and A Prostitute Serving the Public and in Compliance with the Laws of the State (1971). She was previously married to Ettore Boschi.
- Annabella Incontrera was born on 11 June 1943 in Milan, Lombardy, Italy. She was an actress, known for Eneide (1971), The Assassination Bureau (1969) and The Ambushers (1967). She was married to Guglielmo Biraghi. She died on 19 September 2004 in Rome, Italy.
- Jeanne Moody was born on 25 April 1930 in Cherokee, Alabama, USA. She is an actress, known for Three on a Spree (1961), Theatre 625 (1964) and Frontier (1955). She was previously married to Scott Forbes.
- Christa Bergmann is known for Who Was Maddox? (1964), The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre (1959) and Redcap (1964).
- Distinguished Devon-born British actress, acclaimed for her commanding performances on the classical stage. Jefford did her initial training at the Hartly-Hodder School of Speech and Drama and graduated from RADA in 1949. Following her professional acting debut that same year, she spent a year on the repertory stage before joining the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon where her roles included Calpurnia in "Julius Caesar", Desdemona in "Othello" (both opposite Anthony Quayle) and Kate in "The Taming of the Shrew" (opposite Keith Michell as Petruchio). In 1956, Jefford moved to the Old Vic and put her extensive repertoire to good use, headlining in a one-woman show entitled "Heroines of Shakespeare". In the course of her lengthy theatrical career, the charismatic actress relished every opportunity to tackle diverse and complex characters, from Cleopatra and Joan of Arc to Hedda Gabler and Gwendolen Fairfax. In 1965, she reputedly became the youngest recipient of an OBE for services to the theatre at the age of 35. As late as 2002, she appeared as Queen Margaret opposite Kenneth Branagh in Richard III at the Crucible in Sheffield, eliciting an appreciative review from The Guardian which described Jefford as "one of the greatest of Shakespearean actors" who played her part with "Grecian grandeur ".
Despite some early TV work, Jefford's film career did not rise to the same lofty heights and only began when she was already in her mid-thirties (then playing Molly Bloom in James Joyce's Ulysses (1967)). Her rather infrequent later big screen appearances tended to be in off-beat roles: a vampiric countess in Hammer's Lust for a Vampire (1971), Magda Goebbels in Hitler: The Last Ten Days (1973), the coldly self-righteous Mrs. Herriton in Where Angels Fear to Tread (1991) and an eccentric, wheelchair-bound German baroness in Roman Polanski's thriller The Ninth Gate (1999). For the small screen, Jefford guested in episodes of The House of Eliott (1991), Ruth Rendell Mysteries (1987) and Midsomer Murders (1997). Between 1950 and 2003, she also lent her voice to many BBC radio adaptations of classic plays. - Loredana Nusciak was born on 3 May 1942 in Trieste, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy. She was an actress, known for Django (1966), No Way Out (1973) and Gladiators 7 (1962). She was married to Gianni Medici. She died on 12 July 2006 in Trieste, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy.
- Mara Cruz was born on 24 March 1941 in Madrid, Spain. She is an actress, known for Disco rojo (1973), Estudio 1 (1965) and Gran teatro (1960).
- Diahn Williams portrayed Terry on the TV series 'Harry's Girls'. This led to numerous guest appearances on 'The Tonight Show' and other TV programs including 'Get Smart', 'I Spy', and 'The Andy Griffith Show'.
Diahn was also a regular on the soap opera 'Somerset', playing Chrystal Ames in 1973. She starred in the film 'Deadly Hero' in 1976 and then left acting to to return to law school to get her degree, and she now practices as Diahn McGrath.
She lives with her husband Tom McGrath in New York. They have a daughter, Courtney. - Actress
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Joan O'Brien began her show-biz career while she was in high school, on a local TV music show in California with Tennessee Ernie Ford. Soon, she was a successful singer, and made the jump to acting. In about half the films she ever made, it appeared that Joan played a nurse. Perhaps her most memorable appearance was in Blake Edwards' Operation Petticoat (1959), as the nurse who gets in everyone's way because her, umm, "proportions" cause uncomfortable crowding in a small submarine. Because of her, Cary Grant becomes the first officer in the history of the U.S. Navy to sink an enemy truck! She again played a nurse in the Jerry Lewis film, It's Only Money (1962), and yet one more time with Elvis Presley in It Happened at the World's Fair (1963)--and, according to legend, fired up a hot off-screen romance with Elvis. Also in 1963, in a strange sort of "Columbo" connection, she was voted "most likely to wed Robert Vaughn". Joan's final movie was Get Yourself a College Girl (1964), a "Swinging Sixties" teenfest also featuring Nancy Sinatra, with music by The Animals and The Dave Clark Five. After that, she went back to singing for a while, touring with the Harry James Orchestra. She left show business for good to concentrate on raising her kids, and later became a successful executive with the Hilton Hotel chain.- Luisa Baratto is known for Bloody Pit of Horror (1965), The Devil's Man (1967) and Colpo di stato (1969).
- Gabriella Licudi was born Gabrielle Carmen Stuttard, the only child of Wilfred James Stuttard, a naval engineer from Northern Ireland, and Olga Maria Licudi of Gibraltar, from whom she took her stage name. After seeing a film dealing with the education of deaf mutes, Gabriella was so moved she decided to become a teacher of elocution. To help prepare for her chosen profession she enrolled in courses at the Central School of Speech and Drama, where she was spotted by an agent while performing in a class production in 1961. Accepting an offer from the Citizen's Theatre of Glasgow, a week before departing for Scotland Gabriella "gate-crashed" an audition for a new stage play, John Mortimer's "Two Stars for Comfort", starring Trevor Howard. The play was a hit and ran for nine months in London's West End. Producer Samuel Bronston attended a performance and offered Gabriella a small role in his upcoming epic The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964). Gabriella went on to appear in several more films & popular television series, including the title role in the sci-fi cult classic Unearthly Stranger (1963), as a widowed expatriate opposite Patrick McGoohan in an episode of Secret Agent (1964), one of the conspiratorial McTarry daughters in the Bond-spoof extravaganza Casino Royale (1967), in the Henry Hathaway African adventure The Last Safari (1967), and the female lead in the legendary and little-seen experimental feature Herostratus (1967) by Don Levy. Gabriella left films in the 1970s and relocated to Africa, where she and her South African husband ran a safari lodge for several years before she eventually returned to London to run her own production company.
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Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell was born on June 21, 1921, in Bemidji, Minnesota. Her father was a United States Army lieutenant and her mother had been a student of drama and an actress with a traveling troupe. Once Mr. Russell was mustered out of the service, the family took up residence in Canada but moved to California when he found employment there. The family was well-to-do and although Jane was the only girl among four brothers, her mother saw to it that she took piano lessons. In addition to music, Jane was interested in drama much as her mother had been and participated in high school stage productions. Upon graduation, Jane took a job as a receptionist for a doctor who specialized in foot disorders. Although she had originally planned on being a designer, her father died, and she had to go to work to help the family. Jane modeled on the side and was very much sought-after especially because of her figure.
She managed to save enough money to go to drama school, with the urging of her mother. She was signed by Howard Hughes for his production of The Outlaw (1943) in 1941, the film that was to make Jane famous. The film was not a classic by any means but was geared through its marketing to show off Jane's ample physical assets rather than acting abilities. Although the film was made in 1941, it was not released until two years later and then only on a limited basis due to the way the film portrayed Jane's assets. It was hard for the flick to pass the censorship board. Finally, the film gained general release in 1946. The film was a smash at the box office.
Jane did not make another film until 1945 when she played Joan Kenwood in Young Widow (1946). She had signed a seven-year contract with Hughes, and it seemed the only films he would put her in were those that displayed Jane in a very flattering light due to her body. Films such as His Kind of Woman (1951) and The Las Vegas Story (1952) did nothing to highlight her true acting abilities. The pinnacle of her career was in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) as Dorothy Shaw, with Marilyn Monroe. This film showed Jane's comedic side very well. Jane did continue to make films throughout the 1950s, but the films were at times not up to par, particularly with Jane's talents being wasted in forgettable movies to show off her sexy side. Films such as Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (1955) and The Revolt of Mamie Stover (1956) did do Jane's justice and were able to show exactly the fine actress she was.
After The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown (1957) (a flop), Jane took a hiatus from films, to dabble a little in television, returning in 1964 to film Fate Is the Hunter (1964). Unfortunately, the roles were not there anymore as Jane appeared in only four pictures during the entire decade of the 1960s. Her last film of the decade was The Born Losers (1967). After three more years away from the big screen, she returned to make one last film called Darker Than Amber (1970). Her last play before the public was in the 1970s when Jane was a spokesperson for Playtex bras. Had Jane not been wasted during the Hughes years, she could have been a bigger actress than what she was allowed to show. Jane Russell died at age 89 of respiratory failure on February 28, 2011, in Santa Maria, California.- Actress
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For Michèle Mercier, the role of Angélique, "the Marquise of the Angels," was both a blessing and a curse. It catapulted her to almost instant stardom, rivaling Brigitte Bardot in her celebrity and popularity, but ruined her acting career. The character of Angélique made to forget the other aspects of the career of Mercier, but it is true that general public discovered her only in "Angélique," and made her a real star of the French cinema of that time. By the end of the 1960s, the names Angélique and Michèle Mercier were synonymous, and to escape type-casting, Mercier was compelled to leave France and try to re-start her career in United States, unfortunately without any success.
Daughter of Nice's pharmacists, born on January 1, 1939 and named as Jocelyne Yvonne Renée, she initially wanted to be a dancer. Wartime, no money to buy food, but little Jocelyne wept all week, cadging father, well-known pharmacist in Nice, to buy her ballet skirts and points. In return she promised to work in drug-store. Father took this only as childish whim. But little girl got her wish through: of "small ballet-rat," as they call little dancers, who participate in stage shows, she grew up to soloist in Opera of Nice. Then came Paris. First she was engaged to the troupe of Roland Petit, then she danced in the company of the "Ballets of the Eiffel tower." At 15, she met Maurice Chevalier, who predicted her success and glory. They did arrive, but by another way that the dance. Parallel to her career as dancer, Jocelyne followed courses of dramatic art in the class of Solange Sicard. Her debut in French cinema was for Mercier another compromise: her birth name seemed too long and too old-fashioned for movie credits. What, if she'll take a name Michèle? She winced - this was name of her little sister, who died at the age of five by the fever typhoid, but she agreed. And it was also as in testimony of admiration for her partner Michèle Morgan, as she borrowed her name to her. After some romantic comedies and a small role in François Truffaut's "Shoot the pianist" (1960; her favorite role), she approaches the Sixties mainly in the cinema of district. She also worked in England and made then mainly small-budget films in Italy, always in the same register of easy girl. To this moment Michèle already competed with Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida, continuously shooting in Italy. She needed a role, which could make her a star. Only in 1963, when was decided to make movie by sensational novel "Angélique," Michèle got this kind of chance.
Many actresses were approached to play the role of Angélique. The Producer Francis Cosne absolutely wanted Brigitte Bardot for the part. She refused, but later judged Michèle Mercier to be fantastic in it. Annette Stroyberg was considered next, but judged not to be sufficiently well-known. Catherine Deneuve was too pale, Jane Fonda spoke French with an American accent, and Virna Lisi was busy in Hollywood. The most serious actress considered was Marina Vlady. She almost sign a contract, but Michèle Mercier won the role after trying out for it - which she did not appreciate very much since she was being treated like a beginner while she was already a big star in Italy. At the time she was contacted to play Angélique, she had already acted in over twenty movies. During four years she made five Angélique-movies, enjoying the real success. Nevertheless the moment came, when she finally wanted to interrupt with this aggravating character. Michèle played with Jean Gabin in "The Thunder of God" of Denys de la Patellière. Then with Robert Hossein in "La second vérité" of Christian-Jaque... But the time has gone. That was also confirmed by Mercier's flop in Hollywood... What life didn't taught her, that's the skill how to dominate men. Every time Michèle captivated regardlessly. She was deceived, betrayed. She suffered. "Men in their way, shattered my life. What I wanted from them? Real, mutual love. What they wanted - no hard to guess," candidly confessed Michèle after sensational story with a shah, who overwhelmed actress with diamonds and bouquets of flowers, and then tryed to rape her. Press enjoyed Michèle's love affairs and divorces. For some reason or other, in real life this beautiful and kind woman met only rascals, without exception. First husband turned out to be alcoholic. With well known racer Claude Bourillot she lived together 12 years. And she was shocked, when in one day she found out that he vanished with her jewels. Full of dramatism was story of her romance with Italian prince N., who after many years of courtship got intimate with Michèle and at the end betrayed her, refusing to marry her. Incidentally, all these failures even more hardened the character of Michèle Mercier. After a very long eclipse, she decided to return to the cinema. In 1998, the actress made in Cuba and in Italy "La Rumbera," a feature film by Italian director Piero Vivarelli. In 1999, swindled of several million francs in a business venture, Mercier had serious financial problems. She even planned to sell famous wedding gown of the Marquise of the Angels. The actress confessed in Nice Matin: "I am ruined, I'll be obliged to sell part of my paintings, my furnitures, my properties, my jewels and the costumes of Angélique." In 2002, she presented at the Cannes Film Festival her second book of memories in which she affirms in the cover that "she's not Angélique!," entrusting her irritation to be summarized to this glamour-image of the Sixties. In this book Mercier also tells about how Italian actor Vittorio Gassman tried to take her by force, but remembers also the gentility of Marcello Mastroianni and the suppers of Bettino Craxi, former Prime Minister, and Silvio Berlusconi. In the end she admits: "All the men who have made the court of me, tried to seduce Angélique... not me. But then one day I understood that Angelique could not make more harm to me, therefore I have learned to consider she's like a little sister, with whom I had to live hand in hand."- Elisa Ramírez was born on 2 December 1943 in Alzira, Valencia, Comunidad Valenciana, Spain. She is an actress, known for La revoltosa (1969), The Three Musketeers (1970) and La Celestina (1969).
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Antonietta Fiorito is known for Samoa, Queen of the Jungle (1968), Assalto al tesoro di stato (1967) and Le 10 meraviglie dell'amore (1969).- Franca Parisi was born on 28 September 1933 in Palermo, Sicily, Italy. She is an actress, known for The Ten Gladiators (1963), Le inchieste del commissario Maigret (1964) and Caesar Against the Pirates (1962).
- Graziella Granata was born on 13 March 1941 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She is an actress, known for Soldier's Girl (1967), Death on the Run (1967) and The Pirate and the Slave Girl (1959).
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Diminutive Irish-Italian Lisa Gastoni began her acting career in Britain after her family settled there in 1948. Though she had initially wanted to be an architect, she changed her mind and became a model and then an actress, making her debut screen appearance in 1954. She appeared mostly in B-movies, at one time under contract to British Lion. Her first featured role of note was in the naval farce The Baby and the Battleship (1956), followed by a few leads in comedies like Three Men in a Boat (1956) and Second Fiddle (1957), or crime thrillers like Menace in the Night (1957), Thunder Over Tangier (1957) and Prescription for Murder (1958). She also guest starred in two episodes of ITV's Danger Man (1960). She was briefly married in the mid-50s to a physics professor.
In 1961, Gastoni returned to Italy, following a second marriage to a Greek actor. She was immediately elevated to higher profile roles, beginning with that of legendary pirate Mary Read in the swashbuckling adventure Queen of the Seas (1961). She also paid her inevitable ornamental dues in a handful of sword-and-sandal spectacles. However, by the middle of the decade, Gastoni began to shed her 'good girl' image to parlay her prominence into a series of effective villainous portrayals: the nefarious Milady de Winter in I quattro moschettieri (1964), Lucrezia Borgia in L'uomo che ride (1966) and the wife of gangster Luciano Luttring ("the machine gun soloist") in Carlo Lizzani's Wake Up and Die (1966). This role won her a Best Actress Silver Ribbon, followed in 1968 with a Golden Plate at the David di Donatello Awards (the Italian equivalent of the Oscars) for her performance in the morbidly perverse drama Come Play with Me (1968).
In the 70s, Gastoni had yet more critical success playing seductive or sexually frustrated middle-class women in avant garde productions like Amore amaro (1974) (the story of two lovers separated by age, social background and irreconcilable political ideologies) and the morally ambiguous drama Submission (1976). She also played Benito Mussolini's mistress, Claretta Petacci, in The Last 4 Days (1974). Less well received (despite a famous score by Ennio Morricone) was the excessively arty erotic fantasy Maddalena (1971), a curious and belated foray into psychedelics.
Gastoni absented herself from the screen between 1979 and 2005 to pursue other muses (painting and writing). A more recent performance in the drama Sacred Heart (2005) won her a Best Supporting Actress nomination at the David di Donatello Awards.- Luisella Boni was born on 24 July 1935 in Como, Lombardy, Italy. She is an actress, known for Land of the Pharaohs (1955), L'angelo delle Alpi (1957) and Pride and Prejudice (1957). She was previously married to Daniele D'Anza.
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Lisa Gaye was born on 6 March 1935 in Denver, Colorado, USA. She was an actress, known for Ten Thousand Bedrooms (1957), Hawaiian Eye (1959) and How to Marry a Millionaire (1957). She was married to Bently Clyde Ware. She died on 14 July 2016 in Houston, Texas, USA.- Actress
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Barrie Chase was born on 20 October 1933 in New York City, New York, USA. She is an actress, known for Cape Fear (1962), It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963) and Mardi Gras (1958). She is married to Richard Kaufman. They have one child. She was previously married to Jan Malmsjö and Gene Shacove.- Actress
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Mary Jane Mangler was born on 15 May 1938 in the USA. She was an actress, known for Funny Girl (1968), The Ambushers (1967) and L.A. Law (1986). She died in 1993 in the USA.- Actress
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Patricia Ann Ruth Noble was born on February 3, 1944 in Sydney, New South Wales to a popular Australian theater family. Her father, Buster Noble, was a well-known comedian, singer and dancer, and her mother, Helen de Paul, was a noted choreographer and producer. At the age of six, Patsy Ann, as she was known, performed on the Saturday radio program, "Anthony Horden's Children's Party". She also worked in her parents' stage productions and variety show. At age 14, Patsy Ann became one of the youngest qualified ballet teachers in Australia. In 1960, at age 16, she made her first television appearance as a guest on Keith Walshe's Youth Show (1959). Impressed with the youngster, Brian Henderson, the Australian equivalent of Dick Clark, immediately signed her as a regular on Bandstand (1958).
Around that time, Patsy Ann signed a deal with the HMV record label and issued her debut single, "I Love You So Much It Hurts", in November 1960. She released three more singles on HMV, of which "Good Looking Boy" became her biggest hit when it reached #6 in Melbourne and #16 in Sydney. In 1961, she was the winner of the first Logie Award for the Best Female Singer on Australian Television. She followed that with a successful acting debut at the Independent Theatre, Sydney, playing the lead role of Carmel in 'The Grotto'. Shortly thereafter, Patsy Ann and her mother left for London to further her career. She launched her British career in 1963 and shared her first BBC radio show with The Beatles, with whom she also appeared on British television. During this period, she recorded for EMI (England and France) with some chart success and performed at the London Palladium and at the Olympia Theatre in Paris.
By 1965, she had turned to acting, taking the role of Francesca in the British thriller Love Is a Woman (1966). She toured England with Cliff Richard and began to work on English television in dramatic and variety shows. In 1967, she married law student Allan Sharpe. During that year, she changed her stage name from Patsy Ann to Trisha and continued to work in British television and film. In her early 20s, she appeared on an Engelbert Humperdinck musical special and was seen by an American producer, who signed her to star in revue at the Las Vegas Sands Hotel. After a six-month engagement, she moved to Los Angeles and made her home there, making guest appearances on various television series. Trisha returned to Australia briefly in the early 1970s and starred in the stage musical 'Sweet Charity'. After seven years of marriage, she and Allan divorced and she threw herself into her work. Upon her return to the United States, she worked extensively in television series, miniseries and feature films. In 1976, she wed American model Scott MacKenzie and the following year gave birth to their son, Patrick. However, after four years of marriage, the couple divorced in 1980.
Despite personal setbacks, Trisha's acting career continued to thrive as she co-starred with Don Knotts and Tim Conway in The Private Eyes (1980) and she landed the role of Detective Rosie Johnson in the Aaron Spelling/Robert Stack police drama Strike Force (1981). In 1983, her father, Buster, had a heart attack and was not expected to live long. She decided to leave her successful acting career in Hollywood to return home to Australia to be with her family. She enjoyed seven years with her father before his death in July 1990. In 1985, Trisha married pharmaceutical scientist Peter Field and started a mineral-water business, Noble Beverages. Several years later, though, her third marriage ended in divorce and the business fell on hard times. At that point, she decided to sell the business and get back to her first love, show business.
In 1997, a 25-song CD collection of her early 1960s recordings was released: "The Story of Patsy Ann Noble: Hits & Rarities". In August 1997, she filmed a small role in the CBS miniseries Blonde (2001) and was cast in a secret role in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002). Shortly thereafter, Trisha was cast to co-star with David Campbell in the musical 'Shout!' as Thelma O'Keefe, mother of Australian rock 'n' roll star, Johnny O'Keefe. The musical opened on January 4, 2001, in Melbourne, and a cast recording followed in March. To top it all, she was nominated in May for an Australian Entertainment MO Award in the category: Female Musical Theatre Performer of the Year for her role in 'Shout!' Her last film credit was Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005). One of her most recent roles was playing Miss Jacobs/Mrs Crown in the Australian stage production of 'Ladies in Black' in 2017.
Trisha Noble died after an 18 month battle with mesothelioma on January 23, 2021, aged 76. The location of her death has not been revealed.- This cosmopolitan actress is best remembered for appearing as different characters in two early James Bond films. Multilingual Nadezda "Nadja" Poderegin hailed from Kraljevo, a town in present day Serbia (then Yugoslavia). Her father, a Ukrainian-born scientist and lecturer, was killed during World War II when she was just nine years old. With her mother and sister Nadja subsequently resettled in Yugoslavia's capital. She abandoned plans for a career in journalism after commencing studies at Belgrade's Academy of Dramatic Arts (eventually graduating with a B.A.) and was soon featured in a few locally made films.
Her first major role (after shortening her surname to "Regin") was in Das Haus an der Küste (1954), a German-Yugoslav co-production, filmed around picturesque Dubrovnik. It gained some international exposure via distribution through the Rank Organisation and this led to more substantial film offers in Germany. For much of the 50s, Nadja appeared near the top of the bill in a string of romantic dramas and comedies opposite well-seasoned German and Austrian stars like Curd Jürgens, Rudolf Prack, Theo Lingen and Peter Pasetti.
Following her marriage to a Polish war veteran, Nadja moved to Britain. Having a natural aptitude for picking up languages quickly, she added English to her repertoire within a few months, though (by her own admission) her accent tended to restrict her "to either sexy parts or as a spy". Her own favourite film role was the (typically British) wartime comedy Don't Panic Chaps (1959) (starring Dennis Price and George Cole) in which she provided the romantic spark.
She later had guest spots opposite Patrick McGoohan in Danger Man (1960) and Roger Moore in The Saint (1962) before landing a small role as the girlfriend of MI 6 station chief Kerim Be (Pedro Armendáriz) in From Russia with Love (1963). Arguably, Nadja's best known role was as the double-crossing belly-dancer Bonita in Goldfinger (1964). A memorable scene has James Bond (played by Sean Connery) preempting an assailant's attack by catching his reflection in one of Bonita's eyes (photographed in close-up), then spinning her around and using her as a shield.
She swapped the acting profession in the 1970s to work behind the cameras as a script reader/consultant for Rank and Hammer studios. In tandem with her sister, she set up a publishing company (Honeyglen Publishing Ltd) in 1980 and latterly published her own e-book novel "The Victims and the Fools" under the name Nadja Poderegin. - Ilka Windish has played many dramatic roles in her acting career but none outweighs the fascinating drama of her own life. She was impressed by both Germans and Russians before escaping to the United States.
Ilka was born in Vienna as Ilonka Katerina Gerta Maria Theresa Windisch. She was 12 when Hitler invaded Austria (1938), and was studying to be an actress when Hitler decided his troops on the Russian front needed the lilt of Viennese laughter in entertainment. As an entertainer she was sent to the Leningrad sector, along with almost two dozen other students. She was reported to have said, "We were conscripted like soldiers and had to take the oath of allegiance to Hitler. This meant we could be shot if we deserted." For over six months she sang and danced and "died a little" every time applause was drowned out by the booming of the front-line guns.
Returning to Vienna, she won a contract from the Viennese Film Company and starred in eight films, until 1943 brought a change at the studio. Things were going so badly with the Nazis that the studio was converted into a factory, and all contractees were put to work making uniforms and other war apparel. The end of the war brought the Russians to Vienna. Ilka's film company was reestablished, but the performing personnel were "under contract" to the government-operated Cabaret Simplicissimum. She sang and acted for her supper - "mostly lard, flour, and bread".
She met an American war correspondent, Joseph Israels. They wed in 1946 and settled down in a New York apartment in 1947. She studied English, became miserably homesick and took Israels' suggestion that "an actress should act." She acted in a play, "Chameleon," appeared on Hollywood's Screen Test show, and then she and Joe went back to Vienna. They produced a movie in which Ilka starred, and she appeared in other films. Again they returned to New York together, where Israels suddenly died of a heart attack.
To earn money quickly, Ilka became a fashion model, which led to television acting again and to the show, "Studio One." The producer was Felix Jackson and they fell in love. They were married in 1955, and a son, Lawrence, was born to them the following year. - Willi Koopman was born in 1944 in Netherlands. She is an actress, known for The Outsider (1968), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964) and It Takes a Thief (1968).
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Svelte and stunning Texas-born Karen Sharpe was put into ballet shoes as a youngster. Her initial excursion to California was, at age 12, with the interest of becoming a professional ice skater, but the lure of being a movie star intervened. Her training as a teenager in the theater paid off and, in 1952, she appeared in Stanley Kramer's production of The Sniper (1952), directed by Edward Dmytryk. Her role consisted solely of three lines delivered while sitting on a drugstore stool and ordering a cherry phosphate. Although she did not personally meet Kramer at the time, it would be a foreshadowing of a future lifelong relationship.
In her salad days, she paid the rent and more as a billboard model and also graced such popular magazine covers as "Cosmopolitan" and "Pageant." On film, MGM featured her as Janice Rule's kid sister in Holiday for Sinners (1952), opposite William Campbell. Campbell went on to appear with her in other films as well, and they were paired as husband and wife in the Stagecoach West (1960) episode, Never Walk Alone (1961), in 1961. Producer Hal Roach gave her a break by featuring her in the popular "White Rain" commercials, where she danced her way to fame across the tops of rows of shampoo bottles, and he also chose her to represent his studio as Modern Screen Magazine's Golden Key Award winner as 1952's "Star of Tomorrow". Columbia Pictures picked up on this recognition and placed her in the Hugo Haas melodrama, Strange Fascination (1952). Monogram Pictures offered her a starring role in Army Bound (1952), which led to her being cast in Walter Mirisch's cult programmer, Bomba and the Jungle Girl (1952), with Johnny Sheffield (who played "Boy" in the Tarzan series) playing Bomba to Karen's lovely "Jungle Girl". The John Payne western The Vanquished (1953) followed, for Paramount Pictures. The film also starred Jan Sterling, who went on to appear with Karen in a couple of other major films and become a close friend and mentor, as well.
After filming the crime drama Mexican Manhunt (1953), starring George Brent, for Allied Artists, Karen received the biggest break of her young career. Director William A. Wellman cast her in the Wayne-Fellows-Warner Brothers epic airline disaster film, The High and the Mighty (1954). An all-star ensemble, it featured Karen as "Nell Buck", an amorous bride who allays her fears of certain death with the ecstasies of passion for new husband "Milo" (played by John Smith). Karen's standout performance garnered her the 1954 Golden Globe Award for "New Star of the Year". As a result, the film's star and producer, John Wayne, put her under contract to his new company, Batjac. Loaned out to Ida Lupino's company for Mad at the World (1955), Karen then co-starred in United Artists' Man with the Gun (1955) opposite Robert Mitchum. Cast in Batjac's Man in the Vault (1956), she went on loan again, this time for Columbia's war picture, Tarawa Beachhead (1958).
In the 1950s, against the concerns of the studios but with the encouragement of John Wayne, who advised her to "do anything and everything you can to grow as an artist", Karen made herself available for television. Taking Wayne's advice to heart, she found a creative and demanding outlet performing in "live" drama, with roles on Hallmark Hall of Fame (1951), General Electric Theater (1953), Climax! (1954), Matinee Theatre (1955), Playhouse 90 (1956) and Lux Playhouse (1958), among others. She also appeared in episodes of such classic TV shows as The Loretta Young Show (1953), Gunsmoke (1955), Perry Mason (1957), Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse (1958), 77 Sunset Strip (1958), Bonanza (1959), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964) and The Wild Wild West (1965). Karen went on to co-star in Aaron Spelling's very first television series, Johnny Ringo (1959).
Following a hiatus from Hollywood, while straightening out family estate matters, Karen was cast in the pilot for I Dream of Jeannie (1965) as Larry Hagman's fiancé and Jeannie's attractive nemesis. While waiting for the pilot to be sold (which, of course, it did), Jerry Lewis signed her to play opposite him in Paramount's The Disorderly Orderly (1964) as lovesick nurse "Julie Blair", who wins Jerry's affections in the end. It was during that filming that she met Stanley Kramer, who was directing Ship of Fools (1965) at the same time on the Paramount lot. Karen's focus was on her career, however, and a year went by before they actually started dating in January of 1966. After a relatively brief courtship, they married on September 1, 1966, following her completion of the Universal pilot, Valley of Mystery (1967).
Choosing to close the chapter on her acting career, Karen opened a new and rewarding one as full-time wife, mother (of two), and assistant to her husband. With the creation of KNK Productions, Inc., Karen established herself as a producer. Among her many successful projects is a remake of her husband's western classic High Noon (2000), as well as the prospective "Defiant One," a documentary examining Kramer's prolific career, and "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World," a big-screen sequel to his It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963). Kramer passed away on February 19, 2001. Since then, the ever-busy and vivacious Karen has maintained the Stanley Kramer Library. In addition, she also established the Stanley Kramer Award at the Producer's Guild, and the Stanley Kramer Fellowship Award in Directing at UCLA in 2001. Both of these awards honor socially conscious young filmmakers.- The actress was born Marilyn Watts in Santa Monica, California, 17 years before she put her foot on the bottom step of the show biz ladder, dancing in the back row of the chorus in "Earl Carroll's Revue" at the famed showman's theater-restaurant in Hollywood. Modeling for photographers led to wider exposure and ultimately to TV roles and bit parts in low-budget movies. As a Universal-International contract player, she was in most every type of B picture that the studio made. She gave up acting in the early '60s to concentrate on marriage and motherhood during 17 tumultuous years as the wife of actor Richard Long. Since his 1974 death, she's played supporting parts in her friend Clint Eastwood's movies, just as he played a supporting role in one of hers (Tarantula (1955)).
- Darlene Lucht was born on 17 March 1938 in Franklin, Wisconsin, USA. She was an actress, known for Bikini Beach (1964), The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962) and Five Bloody Graves (1969). She was married to Robert Dix. She died on 5 March 2011 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.
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A familiar character actress, Marianna Hill is the daughter of a building contractor. From her native southern California, her family moved around frequently, including to Canada, Spain and Great Britain. As a result, she became familiar with different accents and dialects, whether a French accent (for a guest appearance on My Three Sons (1960), or German Hogan's Heroes (1965). She started acting while a teenager, apprenticing at the La Jolla (Calif.) Playhouse, and also studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City. Marianna's exotic looks enabled her to portray a variety of types, including a Hawaiian girl, an Irish lass and Greek beauty. She has also been an acting coach and teacher at the Lee Strasberg Institute in London.- Actress
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Lucha Moreno was born on 23 April 1939 in Guadalupe, Nuevo León, Mexico. She is an actress, known for Asesinos, S.A. (1957), Quinceañera (1987) and Tirando a matar (1961).- Luely Figueiró was born on 26 September 1935 in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. She was an actress, known for Vou Te Contá (1958), Marido de Mulher Boa (1960) and Nordeste Sangrento (1962). She died on 6 December 2010 in São Paulo, Brazil.
- Jolanda Modio was born in 1946. She is an actress, known for Il magnifico gladiatore (1964), Sotto il placido Don (1974) and Face to Face (1967).
- Ann Lynn was born on 7 November 1933 in Fulham, London, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Just Good Friends (1983), A Shot in the Dark (1964) and Hitler: The Last Ten Days (1973). She was married to Anthony Newley. She died on 30 August 2020 in Oxfordshire, England, UK.
- Nike Arrighi was born on 9 March 1947 in Nice, Alpes-Maritimes, France. She is an actress, known for The Devil Rides Out (1968), Day for Night (1973) and Countess Dracula (1971). She was previously married to Paolo Borghese.
- Toni Gilpin was born in 1935 in Glasgow, Scotland, UK. She was an actress, known for Danger Man (1960), Some Will, Some Won't (1970) and The Avengers (1961). She was married to Richard Carr. She died on 25 October 2016 in Bournemouth, Dorset, England, UK.
- Gay Hamilton was born on 29 April 1943 in Uddingston, Lanarkshire, Scotland, UK. She is an actress, known for A Challenge for Robin Hood (1967), Barry Lyndon (1975) and Space: 1999 (1975).
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She was born Scilla Gabellini, one of five siblings, in Rimini on the Adriatic coast. Scilla initially studied law at Oxford University, graduating with a doctorate. Her interest in pursuing a legal career waned quickly, however, since her next move was a return to Italy for acting classes at Rome's Accademia Nazionale d'Arte Drammatica. At the age of seventeen, the voluptuous, blue-eyed Scilla became a body double for Sophia Loren (to whom she bore more than a passing resemblance), notably in the classic Boy on a Dolphin (1957). Two years later, she underwent cosmetic surgery to look less like Sophia in order to forge her own screen image.
In 1963, Scilla featured on the cover of several magazines, including Playboy, the Milanese publication Le Ore and Parade (at the time, the most widely read weekly in the U.S.). Though she went on to command leads in a number of films during the 60s, Scilla tended to be typecast in roles which emphasized her physical attributes, rather than her acting ability. She appeared most often in genre films, anything from innocuous sex comedies (Genitori in blue-jeans (1960), How to Seduce a Playboy (1966)) to swashbuckling costume dramas (The Queen of the Pirates (1960)), and from spaghetti westerns (Djurado (1966)) to peplum spectacles (Colossus of the Arena (1962), La vendetta di Spartacus (1964)). After 1971, she was afforded more challenging and critically acclaimed roles as a star in Italian TV miniseries.
Eleven years after leaving the screen, Scilla attracted media attention as a result of the murder of her 87-year old landlord father Giuseppe, by a crazed tenant at his villa on the via Campi di Torre Flavia in Ladispoli.- Actress
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Luisa Mattioli was born on 23 March 1936 in San Stino di Livenza, Veneto, Italy. She was an actress, known for The Night of the Great Attack (1959), La bella Lola (1962) and Romulus and the Sabines (1961). She was married to Roger Moore. She died on 5 October 2021 in Zurich, Switzerland.- Actress
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Emily Cranz was born on 21 September 1942 in Tucson, Arizona, USA. She is an actress, known for Con licencia para matar (1969), Muñecas peligrosas (1969) and Jugándose la vida (1963).- Maria-Rosa Rodriguez was born on 7 November 1942 in Guayaquil, Ecuador. She is an actress, known for Peligro...! Mujeres en acción (1969), Ne jouez pas avec les Martiens (1968) and What's Cooking in Paris (1966).
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Carol Eve Rossen was born on 12 August 1937 in Los Angeles, California, USA. She is an actress, known for The Stepford Wives (1975), The Fury (1978) and Then Came Bronson (1969). She was previously married to Hal Holbrook.- Stacy King was an actress, known for The Sweet Ride (1968), Skidoo (1968) and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962). She died on 8 August 2015.
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American actress Kathryn Hays became best known for her 38-year long stint as the fiery matriarch Kim Sullivan Hughes, one of the most prominent characters on the daytime soap As the World Turns (1956). She was born Kay Piper in Princeton and grew up Joliet, Illinois. After junior college, she attended the prestigious Northwestern University in Evanston. Though her career began as a model, Hays quickly segued into acting on the stage and on screen. From the early 60s, she landed regular guest assignments on prime time TV shows, including Route 66 (1960), Bonanza (1959), The Virginian (1962), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964) and Mannix (1967). She also appeared several times as a supporting player on Broadway. In 1966, Hays co-starred as a pioneer's wife opposite Barry Sullivan in The Road West (1966), an NBC western series which ran for just one season and 29 episodes. She then proved her acting mettle as the tempestuous, aptly named 'Tornado' Frances in an episode of The High Chaparral (1967). Next up was what many consider to be her most iconic guest-starring role: the Minaran empath Gem on Star Trek (1966). Gem was capable of absorbing the pain of others and healing their injuries while also learning about compassion and sacrifice. Though her character was mute, Hays expressed more with her eyes and gestures than could have been conveyed by dialogue.
Her two notable appearances for the big screen were in the psychological cold war thriller Ladybug Ladybug (1963) (as a school secretary) and in the World War II epic Counterpoint (1967) (as cellist Annabel Rice, an ex-lover of the main protagonist, played by Charlton Heston). From 1972 until her retirement, the New York-based actress remained gainfully (and happily) employed in As the World Turns.
Kathryn Hays was married three times. Her second husband (1966-69) was the actor Glenn Ford.- Actress
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Elvira Quintana, one of the most beautiful actresses ever to grace the Mexican movie screen, was born in Bajadoz, Spain, in November 1935. Her father was killed during the Spanish Civil War, and she and her mother fled Spain and emigrated to Mexico as political refugees when she was five. Quintana enrolled in the Instituto Teatral y Cinematográfica de ANDA, the Mexican actors' union acting school, working to pay her tuition money. Even before she completed the three-year course, she was cast in bit parts and as an extra in films. Quintana also worked on the stage and in radio early in her acting career.
The young actress had a prominent nose, and she underwent a rhinoplasty to have its size reduced. After her nose-job, her career began to bloom. (She also enlarged her bust by undergoing liquid silicone injections.)
Quintana became a star in 1958 with her singing and dancing performance in Bolero inmortal (1958), in which her character becomes a famous stage performer, but who remains romantically unfulfilled. Quintana rarely appeared in "serious" dramatic fare such as the film that made her a star, appearing mostly in rancheras (a Mexican movie genre of ranch-based comedies), contemporary comedies, and Westerns.
Quintana's star waxed in 1960s, appearing as a regular on the television show "Noches Tapatías" and making appearances in TV movies and on the radio. She became a top star in musicals, and as a recording artist, she released albums of musical diverse genres.
Responding to inquiries on why she had never married, Quintana said she was looking for a "complete gentleman" in her future husband. If she could meet this ideal of a man, she claimed, "I would get married and retire to the peace of home." She never married, as her life was cut short before she could meet her ideal man.
Quintana was struck by pancreatitis in the fall of 1967, which developed into kidney problems, necessitating dialysis. Released from the hospital in February 1968, Quintana returned to work, resuming her recording career. She also appeared in 50 chapters of the radio novella "El Hipócrita" for XEW, until she had to suspend her participation due to a renewal of her illness. She would require intermittent hospitalization until her death in the summer of 1968.
In June 1968, Quintana began seeking specialist care for her pancreatic and kidney problems. She considered going to the United States for treatment, including a possible kidney transplant, but at the beginning of August, she was again hospitalized. On August 8, 1968, Elvira Quintana suffered a cerebral embolism caused by hypertension related to her kidney problems and died at the age of 33.
It was rumored that her fatal illness was caused by the liquid silicone injections she had received. Enlarging the breast through silicone injections required silicone to be injected between the pectoral muscles of the chest wall and the back of the mammary tissues. The problems associated with injections led to the development of breast implants, although a direct cause-and-effect relationship with kidney disease has never been clearly established.
Her funeral was attended by many famous people who came to mourn the death of the beautiful actress. Three years after her death, Elvira Quintana's mother had a book of poetry written by her daughter published. "Poesías de Elvira Quintana" contains 200 poems written by Quintana, who had said that poetry-writing was one of her favorite pastimes.- Susan Albert was born on 20 March 1942 in the USA. She is an actress, known for Get Smart (1965), The Fugitive (1963) and Daniel Boone (1964).
- Elisa Ingram is known for The Wild Wild West (1965), Mission: Impossible (1966) and Get Smart (1965).
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Fenella Fielding was born on 17 November 1927 in Hackney, London, England, UK. She was an actress and writer, known for Guest House Paradiso (1999), Carry on Screaming! (1966) and The Avengers (1961). She died on 11 September 2018 in Hammersmith, London, England, UK.- Born Victoria Vetri (but also known as Angela Dorian) to Italian parents (her mother was from Rome, her father Sicily) and grew up in Los Angeles. She studied art at Los Angeles City College in the 60s before embarking on her movie-television career. Thanks to her beautiful, exotic looks she was cast in parts that required ethnic beauties or scantily clad lovelies. She then posed for Playboy, becoming Miss September, 1967; and was later honored as the 1968 Playmate of the Year, becoming one of the most popular Playmates of the Vietnam War era.
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Beautiful, auburn-haired Virginia Gayle Hunnicutt was born in Fort Worth, Texas, the daughter of Sam Lloyd Hunnicutt, an army colonel, and his wife Mary (née Dickerson). Already in her teens, Gayle was determined to become a serious actress. She attended Texas Christian University in her home town and then won a scholarship to study theatre arts at the University of California. One of her visiting lecturers was the noted French film director Jean Renoir who further encouraged her acting ambitions. Gayle made her first appearances on the stage in college productions and at the Cahuenga Playhouse while supporting her studies financially, working at an advertising agency. Also at the same time, she began to shed her Texan drawl by attending a speech clinic.
Having been 'discovered' by a Warner Brothers talent scout, Gayle was offered a small part in an episode of the TV navy comedy Mister Roberts (1965) and then had a minor role in the Roger Corman-produced and directed outlaw biker counterculture classic The Wild Angels (1966). After that, she attracted attention as a featured guest star on The Beverly Hillbillies (1962) (as a con artist) and in Get Smart (1965) (as Octavia, an alluring KAOS agent). The actor George Peppard was sufficiently impressed by her to persuade director John Guillermin to co-star her as the femme fatale in his private eye thriller P.J. (1967). Another glamour part was to follow as leading lady to James Garner in the neo film noir Marlowe (1969), in which Gayle played a TV star involved with a mob boss.
In 1968, she married the English actor and producer David Hemmings after a whirlwind romance. They appeared together in Fragment of Fear (1970) and he subsequently directed her in Running Scared (1972). Her turbulent union with Hemmings ended in divorce after seven years. Gayle, nonetheless, remained based in London. Having lost all trace of her Texas accent, she could effectively pass for being British. She appeared on the stage in several noted productions, including in the title role of Hedda Gabler at the Watermill Theatre in Newbury and as Peter Pan at the Shaftesbury. On the big screen, she co-starred as the wife of a physicist (Roddy McDowall) investigating The Legend of Hell House (1973). Her most significant impact, however, was to be on British television with her strongest showing as Charlotte Stant in The Golden Bowl (1972) (adapted from the 1904 novel by Henry James) and as the Tsarina Alexandra in the excellent miniseries Fall of Eagles (1974). In the French miniseries Fantômas (1980), she featured as the exotic mistress of the eponymous master criminal (portrayed in this version by Austrian actor Helmut Berger). In similar vein, she essayed Irene Adler -- nemesis of the great detective -- in the premier episode of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1984) and took on the mantle of femme fatale once more opposite Powers Boothe in an episode of Philip Marlowe, Private Eye (1983).
Gayle's second husband (from 1978) was the author, political journalist and BBC broadcaster Simon Jenkins. This union, like her first, produced one son. She divorced Jenkins in 2009. By then, Gayle had already been retired from screen acting for ten years. In 2004, she published a selection of letters her father wrote to her mother while stationed with the 112th Cavalry in the South Pacific, entitled 'Dearest Virginia'. Gayle Hunnicutt passed away on 31 August 2023, aged 80.- Irene Daina was born in Madrid, Madrid, Spain. She is known for Estudio 1 (1965), Carmen nue (1984) and Historias para no dormir (1966).
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Fran Jeffries was born on 18 May 1937 in Mayfield, California, USA. She was an actress, known for The Pink Panther (1963), Sex and the Single Girl (1964) and Harum Scarum (1965). She was married to Steven Schaeffer, Richard Quine, Dick Haymes and Edward Emile Belasco, Jr.. She died on 15 December 2016 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actress
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Pretty and petite 5'2" brunette Delores Wells was born on October 17, 1937 in Reading, Pennsylvania. Delores was the Playmate of the Month in the June, 1960 issue of "Playboy" (she was paid $500 dollars for this particular pictorial). Wells worked as a Bunny at the Chicago Playboy Club, where she earned $1,000 dollars a week. Moreover, Delores also acted in a handful of B-movies and TV shows. She not only was a regular minor player in several 60s AIP "Beach Party" films, but also made guest appearances on episodes of such TV series as The Bob Cummings Show (1961); Thriller (1960); 87th Precinct (1961) and Burke's Law (1963). Wells met legendary adult cinema actress Linda Lovelace at a Playboy Mansion party and worked, for a while, as Lovelace's personal secretary.- Actress
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Sylvia Lewis, born in York, Pennsylvania, first performed as a young child in the last days of vaudeville in Baltimore, Maryland. She received her first classical training as a scholarship student at the Peabody Conservatory of Music, studying dance, voice and piano. Coming to Hollywood at the age of 12, she continued to study and secured parts in such films as Singin' in the Rain (1952) and Red Garters (1954) as a dancer, then in Drums of Tahiti (1953) as an actress. Later she added choreography to her list of credits, which began while she was a regular featured character on the TV series Where's Raymond? (1953), that starred Ray Bolger and ran for 60 episodes on ABC. She choreographed dozens of TV shows since then, including Who's the Boss? (1984) and Married... with Children (1987). Guest appearances on shows like The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961), The Beverly Hillbillies (1962) and Gomer Pyle: USMC (1964), plus a healthy stage career on both coasts, earned her a reputation as a triple-threat performer. Her career in theater, nightclubs, films, and TV which spanned 50 years continued until the 1990s. She now lives in Thousand Oaks, California, with her husband of 30 years, attorney Philip Gunning. She has one daughter (Catherine) from her early marriage to director John Rich.- Actress
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Blonde and blue-eyed with an attractively feline appeal, Carol Lynley began her professional career as Carolyn Lee. She learned ballet at age seven, became a successful child model at age 10 (eventually working for the Sears & Roebuck department store in New York), and got her face nationally recognized as "the Coca-Cola Girl."
Carole Ann Jones was born in New York City to Frances Fuller (Felch) from New England and Irish immigrant Cyril Roland Jones. Trying to branch out into acting early on, in New York City, to Frances Fuller (Felch), from New England, and Cyril Roland Jones, who was an Irish immigrant. Trying to branch out into acting early on, Carol discovered that another individual by that name, born seven years earlier, was already on the books of Actors' Equity, so Carolyn fused "lyn" and "lee" to create 'Lynley'. From age 15 she appeared on Broadway, played juvenile roles in early anthology television, and was featured on the cover of Life Magazine in April 1957. Her first important film roles came in decidedly wholesome fare, beginning with The Light in the Forest (1958) for Walt Disney Productions, in which she played indentured servant Shenandoe. It was a promising start. A New York Times reviewer praised her performance (alongside that of fellow screen newbie James MacArthur), describing both as "real charmers with more than their share of talent." Thrust once more into the limelight, Lynley reprised her earlier Broadway role in the film version of Blue Denim (1959) as a naive girl who becomes pregnant and ponders having an illegal abortion. This performance got her nominated for a Golden Globe Award as Most Promising Newcomer in 1959. That same year, she graduated with a diploma from New York's School for Young Professionals. Lynley went on to play other ingénues and troubled teens before shedding her wholesome image by the early 1960s.
Return to Peyton Place (1961) headlined the actress as a best-selling novelist who controversially reveals the town's darkest secrets and scandals. This was followed by the bawdy (and mostly irritating) sex farce Under the Yum Yum Tree (1963), with Lynley as a virginal college student in a New York apartment block pursued by a lecherous landlord/playboy (played by Jack Lemmon). Luckily, better opportunities to prove her acting mettle turned up with a double role in The Cardinal (1963) (opposite Tom Tryon), and as the tormented mother of a kidnapped child in the superior psychological thriller Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965), directed by Otto Preminger and co-starring Laurence Olivier. Cinema magazine commented "With a face like that of a fallen angel, Carol Lynley has beauty that is often awe inspiring".
In March 1965, the former teen queen posed nude for an issue of Playboy magazine; later that year she played the title role in a turgid biopic of 1930s Hollywood sex symbol Jean Harlow. While the quality of her films tended to decline after the mid-'60s, there were still entertaining moments in B-pictures like The Shuttered Room (1967) and Once You Kiss a Stranger... (1969) (in this lurid thriller, Lynley rose above her material and was memorable in the role of a psychotic murderess). In Irwin Allen's The Poseidon Adventure (1972), she was merely one of the ill-fated passengers who ended up in Davy Jones' Locker. Still, Variety called her performance "especially effective". After 1967, television provided most of her work, including guest spots in seminal shows like Mannix (1967), The Invaders (1967), Hawaii Five-O (1968) and as co-star of the TV pilot for The Night Stalker (1972) (as Carl Kolchak's girlfriend). In her penultimate role, Lynley played a grandmother in a film titled uncannily similar to the one which had launched her career: A Light in the Forest (2003).
Carol Lynley retired from the screen in 2006. A highly capable actress who should have made a bigger splash in Hollywood, she passed away on September 3, 2019 in Pacific Palisades, California from a heart attack. She was 77.- Actress
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Actress Linda Evans has personified beauty and grace to American television viewers for over five decades, from her role as Audra Barkley, a daughter of the Old West on The Big Valley (1965) (1965-1969 on ABC) to the glamorous Krystle Carrington on Dynasty (1981) (1981-1989 on ABC) to Hell's Kitchen (2004), the British competitive cooking reality show she won in 2009.
Linda became one of the most celebrated female television stars of the 1980s. For her role as Krystle, wife of an oil multimillionaire played by John Forsythe and good girl counterpart to Joan Collins' evil Alexis, Linda was nominated five times for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a TV Drama series (every year from 1982 to 1986). She won in 1982, sharing the honor with Barbara Bel Geddes of rival primetime television soap opera Dallas (1978). Linda won five People's Choice Awards as Favorite Actress in a Drama Series in 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, and 1986, and was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead actress in a Drama Series in 1983. For her contribution to the television industry, Linda has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6834 Hollywood Blvd.
Linda was born on November 18, 1942, as Linda Evenstad in Hartford, Connecticut, the second of three daughters to parents who were professional dancers. When Linda was six months old, her family moved to Hollywood.
At age 14, Linda was encouraged to take drama classes to overcome her shyness. At 15, she joined a friend who was auditioning for a television commercial. Linda got the part.
A short time later, Linda earned her first guest-starring role on a major television series, Bachelor Father (1957), starring John Forsythe, whose career would become eternally tied to Linda when they portrayed the powerful Carringtons on Dynasty. She went on to guest-star on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952), Wagon Train (1957), My Favorite Martian (1963) and other staples of the 1960s before landing the role of Audra, daughter of Big Valley matriarch Victoria Barkley, played by Barbara Stanwyck.
Between her Audra years and her portrayal of Krystle, Linda was rarely off the airwaves, guest starring on shows that ranged from McCloud (1970) to The Rockford Files (1974), from the miniseries North & South: Book 2, Love & War (1986) to the primetime drama Hunter (1976), co-starring Linda as secret agent Marty Shaw.
After Dynasty, Linda decided there was something more to life than Hollywood and moved to the Pacific Northwest, where she began an extraordinary journey of self-discovery.
But she returned to performing frequently, starring in the stage play, Legends, and winning the Hell's Kitchen competition while working under Michelin-starred chef Marco Pierre White.
Linda's often lavish and luxurious life has rivaled Krystle Carrington's. She has dined with queens and presidents, been romanced by the rich and famous, and today, what Linda treasures most is the wisdom she has gained along the way.- Actress
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Singer and actress Abbe Lane made a splash in the 50s and 60s with revealing costumes and a seductive style of dancing. Far removed from her sultry Latin image, she was born Abigail Francine Lassman in Brooklyn, of Jewish parentage. Abbe began performing on radio from the age of four and first appeared on screen two years later (under her birth name) in the Vitaphone featurette Toyland Casino (1938), warbling "Five and Ten Cent Soldiers on Parade". Billed as Abbe Marshall --probably in deference to her father's first name 'Abbey'-- she became a hoofer on Broadway by her mid-teens (having lied about her age to get into musicals), before finagling a gig on television as a vocalist for bandleader Vincent Lopez. While performing a calypso number in the 1948 Broadway musical As Girls Go, she was spotted by the charismatic Spanish maestro Xavier Cugat and hired on the spot. For the next few years, she became 'Cugie's' featured vocalist and the 'Rumba King's' star attraction.
Despite a considerable difference in their respective ages (he was thirty-two years her senior), Lane and Cugat married in 1952. During their twelve years together, Lane sang on several Cugat LP's and was featured --with her hair dyed blonde-- on the cover of "The Best of Cugat", a compendium of hits released by Mercury Records. In 1958, Abbe co-starred on Broadway opposite Tony Randall in Oh, Captain, a musical comedy based on the English motion picture The Captain's Paradise (1953). She also sidelined as a nightclub singer, recorded a popular album with Tito Puente's orchestra, entitled "Be Mine Tonight" and appeared in a handful of Hollywood pictures.
Frustrated with being typecast in American films merely as "a decorative accessory", Lane joined Cugat in Italy in 1956 and enjoyed almost immediate screen success. Her first motion picture lead was in I girovaghi (1956), as a fiery dancer who enchants Peter Ustinov's itinerant puppeteer. The following year, she partnered Gabriele Ferzetti (as a suave jewel thief) in the caper comedy Parola di ladro (1957) and starred alongside Totò and Vittorio De Sica in another comedy, The Lady Doctor (1957). Aside from romances and musicals, Lane also featured in peplum (Caesar Against the Pirates (1962)) and as the tempestuous ex-flame of daredevil fire fighter Cornel Wilde (who also directed) in the Paramount love-triangle melodrama Maracaibo (1958), which was filmed on location in Venezuela.
In 1956, Cugat returned to New York while his spouse opted to remain in Italy. The bandleader had no intention of raising a family and this ultimately led to the couple's divorce in June 1964. Lane did not stay single for long. By November, she had moved back to America and married Harvard graduate and Hollywood theatrical agent Perry Leff. The union produced two sons and endured until Leff's death in 2020.
Though unable to reignite her career as an actress, Lane went on to appear as panelist or singer on numerous TV variety shows throughout the 60s and 70s, hosted by the era's most prominent emcees, including Ed Sullivan, Steve Allen, David Frost, Jack Paar, Merv Griffin and Johnny Carson. In her later years, Lane tended to distance herself from her previous sensual image. In January 1993, she published a semi-autobiographical novel, entitled But Where is Love?, a thinly-veiled account of her early career and turbulent marriage to Cugat.
Abbe Lane has a star on the Walk of Fame on Hollywood Boulevard.- Actress
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Joi Lansing was born Joyce Renee Brown on April 6, 1929 in Salt Lake City, Utah. As a teen she developed early, and because of her striking good looks, she began to model and was extremely successful throughout the 1940s.
It was only natural that her physical assets eventually landed her on the silver screen. Her first go at films occurred in 1948 with roles as--what else?--models in The Counterfeiters (1948), Julia Misbehaves (1948), and Easter Parade (1948). She was 20 years old and her acting wasn't exactly polished in the beginning, but producers cared not--she was hired for her looks and her body.
The following year brought more of the same; she got mostly uncredited roles in films as nothing more than a showpiece. She took a hiatus in 1950 to concentrate on her modeling career. She returned to the big screen in 1951 to play minor roles, though this time went a little better. She played Susan Matthews in F.B.I. Girl (1951) and Marilyn Turner in On the Riviera (1951); at least she played characters with names. Then it was back to being a showpiece. In 1952, she had an uncredited role in one of the most popular movies of all time, Singin' in the Rain (1952). Another minor role as the Maxim Girl in The Merry Widow (1952) followed. She began appearing on television in 1955 when she played in an episode of Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok (1951) and one of I Love Lucy (1951) the following year.
In 1955, Joi landed a recurring role as Shirley Swanson in the television series The Bob Cummings Show (1955). It was this series that proved to all that she actually could act well. Because of this series, she began to get more-substantial parts in films such as The Brave One (1956), Hot Cars (1956), and So You Think the Grass Is Greener (1956), all in 1956. Then it was back to bit roles. For the balance of the 1950s, she continued to appear in B-movies with less-than-quality roles. After appearing in the comedy film Who Was That Lady? (1960), Joi landed the role of Goldie in the television series Klondike (1960). However, most viewers remember her as the wife of Lester Flatt on the situation comedy The Beverly Hillbillies (1962), in which she appeared from 1965 to 1968. As Gladys Flatt, her beauty even surpassed Donna Douglas' as Elly May Clampett.
Her film career was now winding down and she appeared as Boots Malone in the B-movie Hillbillys in a Haunted House (1967), which went nowhere.
Joi Lansing died of breast cancer at age 43 on August 7, 1972 in Santa Monica, California.- Actress
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Inga Neilsen was born on 1 July 1940 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. She is an actress, known for Funny Girl (1968), In Like Flint (1967) and The Invisible Man (1975). She was previously married to Dick Orr.- Actress
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Voluptuous would be an understatement when describing the incredibly-endowed June Wilkinson whose va-va-voom 43-22-37 contours filled out a 5' 6" frame that rivaled Jayne Mansfield and Mamie Van Doren during the heyday of the pneumatic blonde bombshell. Of the titillating, top-heavy trio, June wound up a distant third in film popularity but has to be acknowledged and complemented for her continued perseverance in a tough business. Still seen around town here and there broaching age 70, June was one of the most popular cheesecake models lensed nationally during the late 1950s and early 1960s.
The British-born stunner was born on March 27, 1940 in Essex, England and wasted little time. Intially trained in dance (Sussex School of Dancing) to become a ballerina, she was performing on stage from age 12. The one-time brunette began as a topless dancer at age 15 and joined the legendary Windmill Theatre in London as a fan dancer in 1957. Discovered by Hugh Hefner within a short time, June came to America and first appeared in Playboy magazine in September 1958. Hefner rather unimaginatively but appropriately dubbed her "The Bosom." The tag stuck and enhanced her eventual transformation from a stunning brunette to platinum blonde in 1960. A sensation on the pages of Playboy, she appeared again in both August 1959 and November 1960, and in several other issues over the years, although she would never become an official "Playmate."
The uninhibited June took her "Playboy" publicity and ran with it. She started appearing in scores of girlie magazines and newspapers from 1958-1970, Like fellow pneumatics Mansfield and Van Doren, June vied for attention in films. Under contract to Seven Arts, her attempt at movie stardom, however, fell flat (sorry). After being unbilled in such lowgrade films as Thunder in the Sun (1959) and Mr. Tease and His Playthings (1959) (here she appeared faceless as a topless figure called "Torso"), she was showcased in Career Girl (1960), the tale of a girl trying to make it in Hollywood. With such lurid tag lines as "June is bustin' out all over!" promoting her pictures, one need not be a rocket scientist to see where her film career was headed. Subsequent romps in "Golden Age" turkeys like The Private Lives of Adam and Eve (1960), Macumba Love (1960) (her best known), and The Continental Twist (1961) sealed her fate as a serious movie actress.
June, however, kept her name alive throughout the 1960s and 1970s in nightclubs (notably as a sexy foil to Spike Jones), and on the live stage in such sex comedy teasers as "Three in a Bedroom," "The Ninety-Day Mistress" and "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?" via the dinner theater and Las Vegas hotel circuits. Her most successful vehicle was in "Pajama Tops," a show which amplified her still-gorgeous figure as well as her comedy timing. She returned to this well-received show quite frequently for decades and took it briefly to Broadway in 1963. She also appeared glamorously in such TV shows as "Batman," as the villainess Evilina, and "The Doris Day Show." In 1972, June married Dan Pastorini, the NFL quarterback for the Houston Oilers and L.A. Rams, who was known for his playboy-like reputation. He sometimes appeared as an actor in films and TV, and the couple appeared together in the film Weed (1975). They had a daughter, Brahna, before divorcing ten years later.
A savvy, health-conscious businesswoman, her later projects have included running a successful string of fitness centers in Canada, hosting the Encore cable show "The Directors" in which she interviews filmmakers, and a historical fashion show called "Glamour's First 5000 Years." June recently made a rare film appearance in the lowbudget western Three Bad Men (2005) with George Kennedy.- Anita Sands Hernandez began acting at age 18. At 23, she married a Basque from Spain. And in 1963, she retired from acting. Ever since then she has been a Hollywood astrologer to the stars and self-help guru. She also paints in her spare time.
She co-owned the Bazaar Folklorico Shop on Sunset Strip with Master Jules in the mid-1960's. After his death, she transcribed 20 of his lectures and helps maintain a website dedicated to him.
On her websites, she advises about living frugally, doing your own astrological chart, developing new age skills, how to make it in as an actor and how to make it on the Internet as well as self-help advice, romantic advice, how to make money and much, much more.
She has four children. - Nieves Navarro was born on 10 November 1938 in Almería, Andalucía, Spain. She is an actress, known for Death Walks on High Heels (1971), Death Walks at Midnight (1972) and The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion (1970). She was previously married to Luciano Ercoli.
- Erika Remberg was born on 15 February 1932 in Medan, Oostkust van Sumatra, Dutch East Indies [now Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia]. She was an actress, known for Sehnsucht hat mich verführt (1958), Saturday Night Out (1964) and So viel nackte Zärtlichkeit (1968). She was married to Sidney Hayers, Gustavo Rojo and Walther Reyer. She died on 10 November 2017 in Benidorm, Alicante, Valencia, Spain.