Gaby Rodgers is a German-American actress, theater director, and journalist. Although she worked extensively as a television actress in the 1950s, she is best-remembered as an actress for her role as the villainous Lily Carver (Kiss Me Deadly

Kiss Me Deadly

Kiss Me Deadly is a 1955 film noir drama produced and directed by Robert Aldrich starring Ralph Meeker. The screenplay was written by A.I. Bezzerides, based on the Mickey Spillane Mike Hammer mystery novel Kiss Me, Deadly. Kiss Me Deadly is often considered a classic of the noir genre. The film...

, 1955). Her only other theatrical film role was in a gritty 1953 New York indie, The Big Break, starring James Lipton

James Lipton

James Lipton is an American writer, poet, composer, actor and dean emeritus of the Actors Studio Drama School at Pace University in New York City. He is the executive producer, writer and host of the Bravo cable television series Inside the Actors Studio, which debuted in 1994...

.

She appeared on the cover of the January 1957 issue of Cosmopolitan

Cosmopolitan (magazine)

Cosmopolitan is an international magazine for women. It was first published in 1886 in the United States as a family magazine, was later transformed into a literary magazine and eventually became a women's magazine in the late 1960s...

, representing what the magazine billed as "The New Face of Broadway".

The daughter of art dealer, Saemy Rosenberg, and the niece of the philosopher, Edmund Husserl

Edmund Husserl

Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a philosopher and mathematician and the founder of the 20th century philosophical school of phenomenology. He broke with the positivist orientation of the science and philosophy of his day, yet he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic...

, Rodgers is German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 by origin but grew up in Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

. She was married for many years to lyricist Jerry Leiber, half of the songwriting team of Leiber & Stoller, who wrote "Hound Dog

Hound Dog (song)

"Hound Dog" is a twelve-bar blues written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller and originally recorded by Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton in 1952. Other early versions illustrate the differences among blues, country, and rock and roll in the mid-1950s. The 1956 remake by Elvis Presley is the best-known...

", "Jailhouse Rock

Jailhouse Rock (song)

"Jailhouse Rock" is a song written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller that first became a hit for Elvis Presley. The song was released as a 45rpm single on September 24, 1957, to coincide with the release of Presley's motion picture, Jailhouse Rock...

", and other songs. Rodgers is frequently cited as co-author of the song "Jackson

Jackson (song)

"Jackson" is a song, written in 1963 by Jerry Leiber and Billy Edd Wheeler, about a married couple who find that the "fire" has gone out of their relationship...

" with Billy Edd Wheeler

Billy Edd Wheeler

Billy Edward "Edd" Wheeler is an American songwriter, performer, writer and visual artist. He has written songs performed by over 90 different artists including Judy Collins, Jefferson Airplane, Bobby Darin, The Kingston Trio, Johnny Cash, Neil Young, Kenny Rogers, Hazel Dickens, and Elvis Presley...

, but this is untrue; Leiber wrote the song with Wheeler, using his then-wife's name as a pseudonym.

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