More Damsels

1. Peggy McIntyre

Peggy McIntyre was born on January 17, 1932 in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. She is an actress, known for The Loves of Edgar Allan Poe (1942), Small Town Girl (1953) and Syncopation (1942).

Born in Los Angeles, Gloria worked in show business as a child. Small roles in movies led Gloria to be cast as Jackie Gleason's daughter "Babs" on the television series "The Life of Riley" (1949). This show ran during the 1949-50 season. Her next television series was "Sky King" (1951), wherein she...

3. Christine Kaufmann

Actress | Taras Bulba

Born in Austria to a French mother and a German father, young Christine Kaufmann conquered the hearts of post-war German movie audiences in movies like Der schweigende Engel (1954), Ein Herz schlägt für Erika (1956) and, most famously, Rosen-Resli (1954). Discovered at the tender age of ...

4. Lizabeth Scott

Actress | Too Late for Tears

Lizabeth Scott was born Emma Matzo on September 29, 1922 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the oldest of six children of Mary (Pennock) and John Matzo, who were Slovak immigrants. Scott attended Marywood Seminary and the Alvienne School of the Theatre in New York City, where she adopted the stage name of ...

5. Alexis Smith

Actress | The Age of Innocence

Statuesque, smart Canadian-born Alexis Smith, with her blue/green eyes and a seductively husky voice, lent a touch of class to her leading ladies of the 1940s and 1950s.

After her family moved to California, Alexis grew into a precocious talent and performed ballet in public by the age of thirteen -...

6. Jeff Donnell

Actress | In a Lonely Place

A reliable featured player and occasional co-star, actress Jeff Donnell was born Jean Marie Donnell in a boy's reformatory in South Windham, Maine in 1921. The younger of two daughters, her father (Howard) was a penologist and mother (Mildred) a schoolteacher. Raised in Maryland, she took piano and...

7. Janis Carter

Actress | Secret Agent of Japan

After graduating with two degrees (arts and music) from Mather College (Western Reserve) in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1935, Janis headed to New York with aspirations of embarking on a musical career in opera. Supporting herself by waitressing, singing in churches, modeling (Conover) and writing radio ...

8. Marion Martin

Actress | Mexican Spitfire's Elephant

Dubbed "The World's Most Beautiful Showgirl" on Broadway and "Hollywood's blonde menace" on film, brassy "B" singer-actress Marion Martin was a minor predecessor to Marilyn Monroe's peroxide bombshell, yet her brazen persona was closer to the seductive leanings of Mae West. Born Marion Suplee on ...

9. Frieda Inescort

Actress | Pride and Prejudice

Tall, dark and regal Frieda Inescort's placid loveliness and dignified patrician features boded her well in Hollywood during the late 1930s and 1940s. Born on June 29, 1901 in Edinburgh, the Scots-born actress who began acting on stage, did not arrive in Hollywood until age 34 (then considered too ...

10. Nina Foch

Actress | An American in Paris

A leading lady of the 1940s, the tall and blonde Foch usually played cool, aloof and often foreign, women of sophistication. As film roles became harder to find, Foch proved to be versatile in many areas. She was a panelist on several TV quiz shows, worked as George Stevens' assistant director for ...

11. Kay Francis

Actress | Trouble in Paradise

Kay Francis is possibly the biggest of the 'forgotten stars' from Hollywood's Golden Era, yet, for a while in the 1930s, she ranked as one of the most popular actresses, tagged the 'Queen of Warner Brothers', by 1935 earning a yearly salary of $115,000 (compared to Bette Davis with $18,000). The ...

12. Sue England

Actress | Funny Face

Sue England was born on July 17, 1928 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA as Patsy Sue Evans. She was an actress, known for Funny Face (1957), Teen-Age Crime Wave (1955) and Space Patrol (1950). She was married to Larry Stewart and Harvey Ernest Coffman. She died on March 19, 2018 in Los Angeles, California, ...

13. Dorothy Mackaye

Writer | Ladies They Talk About

Dorothy Mackaye was born on May 8, 1899 in Denver, Colorado, USA as Dorothy A. McKay. She was a writer and actress, known for Ladies They Talk About (1933) and Lady Gangster (1942). She was married to Paul Kelly and Ray Raymond. She died on January 5, 1940 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

14. Jane Frazee

Actress | Rosie the Riveter

A professional entertainer since the age of six, blue-eyed brunette Jane Frazee and her older sister Ruth Frazee had a vaudeville sister act and appeared in nightclubs and on radio together. They journeyed to Hollywood, but the act broke up when Ruth failed her screen tests and Jane passed hers. ...

15. Barbara Steele

Actress | La maschera del demonio

The most beautiful star of the greatest horror masterpiece of Italian film, Black Sunday (1960): Barbara Steele was born on December 29, 1937 in Birkenhead, Cheshire, England. Barbara is loved by her fans for her talent, intelligence, and a dark mysterious beauty that is unique; her face epitomizes...

16. Nan Leslie

Actress | Sunset Pass

Nan Leslie was born on June 4, 1926 in Los Angeles, California, USA as Nanette June Leslie. She was an actress, known for Sunset Pass (1946), Kings Row (1955) and Western Heritage (1948). She was married to Albert Jason Coppage and Charles Pawley. She died on July 30, 2000 in San Juan Capistrano, ...

17. Beverly Garland

Actress | Gunslinger

Born in Santa Cruz, California, Beverly Garland studied dramatics under Anita Arliss, the sister of renowned stage and screen star George Arliss. She acted in little theater in Glendale then in Phoenix after her family relocated to Arizona. Garland also worked in radio and appeared scantily clad in...

18. Barbara Stanwyck

Actress | Double Indemnity

Today Barbara Stanwyck is remembered primarily as the matriarch of the family known as the Barkleys on the TV western The Big Valley (1965), wherein she played Victoria, and from the hit drama The Colbys (1985). But she was known to millions of other fans for her movie career, which spanned the ...

19. Anita Page

Actress | The Broadway Melody

Beautiful Anita Page was one of the most famous and popular leading ladies during the last years of the silent screen and the first years of the talkie era. She was best known for starring in The Broadway Melody (1929), the first sound film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Her leading men...

20. Sheila Ryan

Actress | Deadline for Murder

Sheila Ryan was born on June 8, 1921 in Topeka, Kansas, USA as Katherine Elizabeth McLaughlin. She was an actress, known for Deadline for Murder (1946), Dead Men Tell (1941) and The Lone Wolf in Mexico (1947). She was married to Pat Buttram, Edward Norris and Allan Lane. She died on November 4, ...

21. Karin Dor

Actress | You Only Live Twice

Born Kätherose Derr in Wiesbaden, Karin Dor studied acting and ballet at school and began in films as an extra. The attractive redhead made an indelible impression on Austrian director Harald Reinl (who became her first husband in 1954) and this paved the way to higher profile roles. Her first ...

22. Lillian Rich

Actress | The Golden Web

English silent screen siren Lillian Rich was 19 when she arrived in New York, courtesy of her Canadian husband Lionel Edward Nicholson. The couple had met while "Leo" was on active duty as a fighter pilot with the Royal Naval Air Service during World War I. He came from a well-to-do middle-class ...

23. Katherine DeMille

Actress | Black Gold

A dark, exotic beauty, Katherine DeMille was a fascinating screen presence in the 1930s and 1940s. She was born in Canada to a Scottish schoolteacher, Edward Gabriel Lester, and his Italian-Swiss wife, Cecile Bianca Bertha (Colani) Lester. Her father was killed in France during World War I, and her...

24. Carol Cleveland

Actress | Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Born in England, Carol moved to the United States as a youngster after her mother remarried a man in the U.S. Air Force. She attended grammar school in San Antonio, Texas, then John Marshall Junior High and Pasadena High School both in Pasadena, California. She returned to London in 1960 and soon ...

25. Barbara Bouchet

Actress | Casino Royale

Stunningly beautiful and charismatic blonde Barbara Bouchet was born Barbel Goutscherola on August 15th, 1943 in Liberec, Czechoslovakia, known as Reichenberg, during the German occupation. Her father, Fritz, was a war photographer.

Her family was forced to leave the country when Barbara was a ...

26. Christine Larson

Actress | Partners of the Sunset

Diminutive beauty Christine Larsen (also credited as 'Larson' in some of her early films) had a minor Hollywood career, spanning a mere seven years, from 1948 to 1955. On the rare occasions she was not cast as the perfunctory love interest in B-westerns, opposite the likes of Johnny Mack Brown, she...

27. Honor Blackman

Actress | Goldfinger

Comparing this sultry-eyed blonde to Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich may seem a bit overzealous, but Honor Blackman's stylish allure cannot be denied.

One of four children, Blackman was born in London's East End, to Edith Eliza (Stokes), a homemaker, and Frederick Thomas Blackman, a statistician ...

28. Mari Blanchard

Actress | Destry

Petite, attractive Mari Blanchard rarely managed to get the lucky breaks. The daughter of an oil tycoon and a psychotherapist, she suffered from severe poliomyelitis from the age of nine, which denied her a hoped-for dancing career. For several years, she worked hard to rehabilitate her limbs from ...

29. Martha Hyer

Actress | The Sons of Katie Elder

Martha Hyer was born on August 10, 1924 in Fort Worth, Texas. Once she finished her formal schooling, Martha played a bit role in 1946's The Locket (1946). Slowly, Martha began picking up roles with more and more substance. The best years for the beautiful actress began in 1954 when she played in ...

30. Elke Sommer

Actress | A Shot in the Dark

This gorgeous Teutonic temptress was one of Hollywood's most captivating imports of the 1960s. Blonde and beautiful, Berlin-born Elke Sommer, with her trademark pouty lips, high cheekbones and sky-high bouffant hairdos, proved irresistible to American audiences, whether adorned in lace or leather, ...

31. Claudia Cardinale

Actress | C'era una volta il West

Like many other female Italian film stars, Claudia Cardinale's entry into the business was by way of a beauty pageant. She was 17 years old and studying at the Centro Sperimentale in Rome when she entered a beauty contest, which resulted in her getting a succession of small film roles. Her earthy ...

32. Mie Hama

Actress | You Only Live Twice

Mie Hama was born in Tokyo, Japan on November 20, 1943 in a blue-collar Tokyo family whose small cardboard factory burned down in World War II. She grew up poor. She first started out working as a bus fare collector. While working, she was spotted by producer Tomoyuki Tanaka when she was only ...

33. Paulette Goddard

Actress | Modern Times

Paulette Goddard was a child model who debuted in "The Ziegfeld Follies" at the age of 13. She gained fame with the show as the girl on the crescent moon, and was married to a wealthy man by the time she was 16. After her divorce she went to Hollywood in 1931, where she appeared in small roles in ...

34. Carol Lynley

Actress | The Poseidon Adventure

Blond, blue-eyed and with an attractively feline appeal, Carol Lynley began her professional career as Carolyn Lee. She learned ballet at the age of seven, became a successful child model at the age of ten (eventually working for the Sears & Roebuck department store in New York) and got her face ...

35. Martine Beswick

Actress | Thunderball

Brunette bombshell and second-string goddess Martine Beswick(e) was born on September 26, 1941, to a British father and Portuguese/Japanese mother in Port Antonio, Jamaica. Some brief modeling and pageant entering came to be before seeking a career in films. She allegedly once won a "Miss Autoville...

36. Femi Benussi

Actress | Poppea... una prostituta al servizio dell'impero

Femi Benussi was born on March 4, 1945 in Rovigno, Istria, Italy as Eufemia Benussi. She is an actress, known for Poppea... una prostituta al servizio dell'impero (1972), Bloody Pit of Horror (1965) and The Bloodsucker Leads the Dance (1975).

37. Evelyn Venable

Actress | Hollywood Stadium Mystery

Lovely and ethereal in looks, and quite unassuming in nature, 1930s actress Evelyn Venable was born in 1913 in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she grew up and received her schooling. Both her father, Emerson Venable, and grandfather were writers/teachers. In her high school drama department, Evelyn played ...

38. Michele Carey

Actress | El Dorado

Michele Carey was born on February 26, 1942 in Annapolis, Maryland, USA as Michele Lee Henson. She was an actress, known for El Dorado (1966), The Wild Wild West (1965) and Live a Little, Love a Little (1968). She was married to Fred G. Strebel. She died on November 21, 2018 in Newport Beach, ...

39. Joi Lansing

Actress | Touch of Evil

Joi Lansing was born Joyce Renee Brown on April 6, 1929 in Salt Lake City, Utah. She was a young lady who developed early, physically, as a teen. Because of her striking good looks, she began modeling and was extremely successful throughout the 1940s. It was only natural her physical assets ...

40. Cathy Downs

Actress | My Darling Clementine

A pleasant, attractive leading lady, Cathy Downs was an "outdoors type" who worked as a model before she became a Fox contract player in 1944. In the late 1940s she was being groomed for major success -- e.g., she played the title role in John Ford's My Darling Clementine (1946) -- but most of her ...

41. Aline Towne

Actress | Radar Men from the Moon

She spent the last 25 years of her life doing what she loved most: travelling the world. Before her death in 1996, she travelled extensively to Asia, Africa, India, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South America, Central America, Russia, Scandinavia, Middle East. Aline Towne was not only an ...

42. Claudia Barrett

Actress | Robot Monster

California native Imogene Williams (born in Los Angeles, raised in Sherman Oaks) was a student at The Pasadena Playhouse when an agent helped her get a contract with Warner Bros. Under her new name, Claudia Barrett, Warners gave her juicy secondary parts in several films, and freelance work with ...

43. Noreen Nash

Actress | Phantom from Space

Noreen Nash was born on April 4, 1924 in Wenatchee, Washington, USA as Norabelle Jean Roth. She is an actress and writer, known for Phantom from Space (1953), Giant (1956) and The Devil on Wheels (1947). She was previously married to James Whitmore and Dr. Lee Edward Siegel.

44. Adele Longmire

Actress | Bullet Scars

Adele Longmire was born on June 27, 1918 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. She was an actress, known for Bullet Scars (1942), I Love Lucy (1951) and The Turning Point (1952). She was married to Arthur Franz. She died on January 15, 2008 in Taos, New Mexico, USA.