Anne Jeffreys
Encyclopedia
Anne Jeffreys is an American actress and singer.
, Jeffreys entered the entertainment field at a young age; her initial training was in voice (she was an accomplished soprano), but she decided as a teenager to sign with the John Robert Powers
agency as a junior model.
Her plans for an operatic career were sidelined when she was cast in a staged musical review, Fun for the Money. Her appearance in that revue led to her being cast in her first movie role, in I Married an Angel
(1942), starring Nelson Eddy
and Jeanette MacDonald
. She was under contract to both RKO
and Republic Studios during the 1940s, including several appearances as Tess Trueheart in the Dick Tracy
series, and the 1944 Frank Sinatra
musical Step Lively
. She also appeared in the horror comedy Zombies on Broadway
with Wally Brown
and Alan Carney
in 1945.
When her career faltered, she instead focused on her stage career, playing lead roles on Broadway in productions such as the 1947 opera Street Scene, the 1948 Cole Porter
musical Kiss Me, Kate
(having replaced Patricia Morison
) and the 1952 musical Three Wishes for Jamie
. With long-term husband Robert Sterling
, who was first married to Ann Sothern
, she appeared in the CBS sitcom Topper
(1953–1955), in which she was billed in a voiceover as "the ghostess with the mostest".
After a semi-retirement in the 1960s, she appeared on television, appearing in episodes of such TV series as L.A. Law
and Murder, She Wrote
. She was nominated for a Golden Globe for her work in The Delphi Bureau
(1972). From 1984 to 1985, she starred in the short-lived Aaron Spelling
series Finder of Lost Loves
. She also appeared in Baywatch
as David Hasselhoff
's mother, and also had a recurring role in the night-time soap Falcon Crest
as Amanda Croft.
In 1979, she guest-starred as Siress Blassie in the Battlestar Galactica
episode "The Man With Nine Lives" as a love interest of Chameleon, a part played by Fred Astaire
. She was the last person to dance with him onscreen. She also guess-starred as Prime Minister Dyne in the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
episode "Planet of the Amazon Women" as the leader of the titular planet.
Her most recent career has been in daytime television; since 1984, she has appeared on the soap opera General Hospital
(as well as its short-lived spinoff, Port Charles
) as wealthy socialite Amanda Barrington.
Jeffreys' star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
is at 1501 Vine Street.
She married actor Robert Sterling
in 1951. Sterling appeared with Jeffreys in the series Topper
. In January 1958, the duo tried another series, Love That Jill. It ran only a few months, with 13 episodes shot. They had three sons: Jeffrey, Dana and Tyler. Robert Sterling died on May 30, 2006 at age 88.
Career
Born Anne Carmichael in Goldsboro, North CarolinaGoldsboro, North Carolina
Goldsboro is a city in Wayne County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 37,597 at the 2008 census estimate. It is the principal city of and is included in the Goldsboro, North Carolina Metropolitan Statistical Area. The nearby town of Waynesboro was founded in 1787 and Goldsboro was...
, Jeffreys entered the entertainment field at a young age; her initial training was in voice (she was an accomplished soprano), but she decided as a teenager to sign with the John Robert Powers
John Robert Powers
John Robert Powers was an American actor and founder of a prominent New York City modeling agency.In 1923, John Robert Powers founded a modeling agency. The John Robert Powers Agency represented many models who went on to success in the Hollywood film industry, and even Betty Bloomer who became...
agency as a junior model.
Her plans for an operatic career were sidelined when she was cast in a staged musical review, Fun for the Money. Her appearance in that revue led to her being cast in her first movie role, in I Married an Angel
I Married an Angel
I Married An Angel is a musical comedy by Rodgers and Hart. It was adapted from a play by Hungarian playwright János Vaszary, entitled Angyalt Vettem Felesegul. The book was by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, with music by Rodgers and lyrics by Hart. The story concerns a wealthy banker who,...
(1942), starring Nelson Eddy
Nelson Eddy
Nelson Ackerman Eddy was an American singer and actor who appeared in 19 musical films during the 1930s and 1940s, as well as in opera and on the concert stage, radio, television, and in nightclubs. A classically trained baritone, he is best remembered for the eight films in which he costarred...
and Jeanette MacDonald
Jeanette MacDonald
Jeanette MacDonald was an American singer and actress best remembered for her musical films of the 1930s with Maurice Chevalier and Nelson Eddy...
. She was under contract to both RKO
RKO Pictures
RKO Pictures is an American film production and distribution company. As RKO Radio Pictures Inc., it was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chains and Joseph P...
and Republic Studios during the 1940s, including several appearances as Tess Trueheart in the Dick Tracy
Dick Tracy
Dick Tracy is a comic strip featuring Dick Tracy, a hard-hitting, fast-shooting and intelligent police detective. Created by Chester Gould, the strip made its debut on October 4, 1931, in the Detroit Mirror. It was distributed by the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate...
series, and the 1944 Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
musical Step Lively
Step Lively (1944 film)
Step Lively is a 1944 musical film directed by Tim Whelan and starring Frank Sinatra. Step Lively was based on the play Room Service, by Allen Boretz and John Murray.-Cast:* Frank Sinatra - Glenn Russell* George Murphy - Gordon Miller...
. She also appeared in the horror comedy Zombies on Broadway
Zombies on Broadway
Zombies on Broadway is an American Comedy-horror film released in 1945.-Plot summary:The duo of Jerry Miles and Mike Strager are employed as Broadway press agents. Miles and Strager's latest idea is to hire a genuine zombie for the opening of a new nightclub...
with Wally Brown
Wally Brown
Wally Brown was an actor, comedian, and long-time partner of Alan Carney.- Biography :Wally was born in Malden, Massachusetts and served as a vaudevillian. In 1942, he began his film career in Hollywood at RKO Radio Pictures with the film Petticoat Larceny...
and Alan Carney
Alan Carney
Alan Carney was an American actor and comedian.Alan Carney was born David Boughal in Brooklyn, New York. He had performed in vaudeville for years as a comic dialectican. After making his first film, 1941's Convoy, Carney signed a contract at RKO Pictures, in choice supporting roles in such films...
in 1945.
When her career faltered, she instead focused on her stage career, playing lead roles on Broadway in productions such as the 1947 opera Street Scene, the 1948 Cole Porter
Cole Porter
Cole Albert Porter was an American composer and songwriter. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his domineering grandfather and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre...
musical Kiss Me, Kate
Kiss Me, Kate
Kiss Me, Kate is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. It is structured as a play within a play, where the interior play is a musical version of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. The original production starred Alfred Drake, Patricia Morison, Lisa Kirk and Harold Lang.Kiss...
(having replaced Patricia Morison
Patricia Morison
Patricia Morison is an American stage and motion picture actress and mezzo-soprano singer . She made her feature film debut in 1939 after several years on the stage. During her time as a screen actress she was lauded for her patrician beauty, with her blue eyes and extremely long, dark hair among...
) and the 1952 musical Three Wishes for Jamie
Three Wishes for Jamie
Three Wishes for Jamie is a musical with a book by Charles O'Neal and Abe Burrows and music and lyrics by Ralph Blane.Based on O'Neal's 1949 novel The Three Wishes of Jamie McRuin, the fantasy focuses on the title character, a young Irishman who, when offered three wishes by the Queen of the...
. With long-term husband Robert Sterling
Robert Sterling
Robert Sterling, born William Sterling Hart was an American film and television actor.-Early life:...
, who was first married to Ann Sothern
Ann Sothern
Ann Sothern was an American film and television actress whose career spanned six decades.-Early life and career:...
, she appeared in the CBS sitcom Topper
Topper (TV series)
Topper is an American fantasy sitcom based on the 1937 film of the same name. The series was broadcast on CBS from October 9, 1953 to July 15, 1955, and stars Leo G. Carroll in the title role.-Synopsis:...
(1953–1955), in which she was billed in a voiceover as "the ghostess with the mostest".
After a semi-retirement in the 1960s, she appeared on television, appearing in episodes of such TV series as L.A. Law
L.A. Law
L.A. Law is a US television legal drama that ran on NBC from September 15, 1986 to May 19, 1994. L.A. Law reflected the social and cultural ideologies of the 1980s and early 1990s and many of the cases featured on the show dealt with hot topic issues such as abortion, racism, gay rights,...
and Murder, She Wrote
Murder, She Wrote
Murder, She Wrote is an American television mystery series starring Angela Lansbury as mystery writer and amateur detective Jessica Fletcher. The series aired for 12 seasons from 1984 to 1996 on the CBS network, with 264 episodes transmitted. It was followed by four TV films and a spin-off series,...
. She was nominated for a Golden Globe for her work in The Delphi Bureau
The Delphi Bureau
The Delphi Bureau was a dramatic television series aired in the United States by ABC as one of three elements of The Men, a wheel series shown as part of its 1972-73 schedule....
(1972). From 1984 to 1985, she starred in the short-lived Aaron Spelling
Aaron Spelling
Aaron Spelling was an American film and television producer. As of 2009, Spelling's eponymous production company Spelling Television holds the record as the most prolific television writer, with 218 producer and executive producer credits...
series Finder of Lost Loves
Finder of Lost Loves
Finder of Lost Loves is an American drama series aired by the ABC network during the 1984-1985 season.-Synopsis:After Cary Maxwell's wife Kate dies, he decides to set up a private detective agency specializing in reuniting clients with a former loved one...
. She also appeared in Baywatch
Baywatch
Baywatch is an American action drama series about the Los Angeles County Lifeguards who patrol the beaches of Los Angeles County, California, starring David Hasselhoff. The show ran in its original title and format from 1989 to 1999, sans the 1990-1991 season, of which it was not in production...
as David Hasselhoff
David Hasselhoff
David Michael Hasselhoff is an American actor, singer, producer and businessman. He is best known for his lead roles as Michael Knight in the popular 1980s US series Knight Rider and as L.A. County Lifeguard Mitch Buchannon in the series Baywatch...
's mother, and also had a recurring role in the night-time soap Falcon Crest
Falcon Crest
Falcon Crest is an American primetime television soap opera which aired on the CBS network for nine seasons, from December 4, 1981 to May 17, 1990. A total of 227 episodes were produced....
as Amanda Croft.
In 1979, she guest-starred as Siress Blassie in the Battlestar Galactica
Battlestar Galactica (1978 TV series)
Battlestar Galactica is an American science fiction television series, created by Glen A. Larson. It starred Lorne Greene, Richard Hatch and Dirk Benedict and ran for one season in 1978–79. After cancellation, its story was continued in 1980 as Galactica 1980 with Adama, Lieutenant Boomer and...
episode "The Man With Nine Lives" as a love interest of Chameleon, a part played by Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
. She was the last person to dance with him onscreen. She also guess-starred as Prime Minister Dyne in the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (TV series)
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century is an American science fiction adventure television series produced by Universal Studios. The series ran for two seasons between 1979–1981, and the feature-length pilot episode for the series was released as a theatrical film several months before the series aired....
episode "Planet of the Amazon Women" as the leader of the titular planet.
Her most recent career has been in daytime television; since 1984, she has appeared on the soap opera General Hospital
General Hospital
General Hospital is an American daytime television drama that is credited by the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest-running American soap opera currently in production and the third longest running drama in television in American history after Guiding Light and As the World Turns....
(as well as its short-lived spinoff, Port Charles
Port Charles
Port Charles was a daytime soap opera which aired on ABC from June 2, 1997 to October 3, 2003. It is a spin-off of the serial General Hospital, which has been running since 1963 and takes place in the fictional city of Port Charles, New York...
) as wealthy socialite Amanda Barrington.
Jeffreys' star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
is at 1501 Vine Street.
Personal life
Jeffreys has been married twice. Her first marriage, to Joseph Serena, was annulled in 1949.She married actor Robert Sterling
Robert Sterling
Robert Sterling, born William Sterling Hart was an American film and television actor.-Early life:...
in 1951. Sterling appeared with Jeffreys in the series Topper
Topper (TV series)
Topper is an American fantasy sitcom based on the 1937 film of the same name. The series was broadcast on CBS from October 9, 1953 to July 15, 1955, and stars Leo G. Carroll in the title role.-Synopsis:...
. In January 1958, the duo tried another series, Love That Jill. It ran only a few months, with 13 episodes shot. They had three sons: Jeffrey, Dana and Tyler. Robert Sterling died on May 30, 2006 at age 88.