Gloria Talbott was an American film and television actress.

Early life and career

She grew up in Glendale

Glendale, California

Glendale is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2010 Census, the city population is 191,719, down from 194,973 at the 2000 census. making it the third largest city in Los Angeles County and the 22nd largest city in the state of California...

, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

. Her sister, Lori Talbott, also became an actress.

Talbott began her career as a child actor

Child actor

The term child actor or child actress is generally applied to a child acting in motion pictures or television, but also to an adult who began his or her acting career as a child; to avoid confusion, the latter is also called a former child actor...

 in such films as Maytime (1937) Sweet and Lowdown (1943) and A Tree Grows In Brooklyn

A Tree Grows In Brooklyn (film)

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a 1945 film, the first film directed by Greek-American director Elia Kazan, starring James Dunn , Dorothy McGuire, Joan Blondell, and Peggy Ann Garner .The film is based on an American novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith first published in 1943...

(1945).

After leaving school, Talbott formed a dramatic group and played "arena"-style shows at various clubs. She stopped acting following her marriage, and resumed after her divorce

Divorce

Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...

, having worked extensively in film and television. She worked on a regular basis in the 1950s, having appeared in Crashout

Crashout

-Plot:Convict Van Duff is the leader of a large-scale prison break. The breakout works as the six survivors hide out in a forgotten mine working near the prison....

(1955), the Humphrey Bogart

Humphrey Bogart

Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....

 comedy We're No Angels (1955) and All That Heaven Allows

All That Heaven Allows

All That Heaven Allows is a romance feature film starring Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson in a tale about a well-to-do widow and a younger landscape designer falling in love. The screenplay was written by Peg Fenwick based upon a story by Edna L. Lee and Harry Lee...

(1955). In that same year, Talbott appeared in TV Reader's Digest

TV Reader's Digest

TV Reader's Digest is the title of a 30 minute American television anthology drama series which aired on the ABC from 1955 to 1956.Based on articles that appeared in Reader's Digest magazine, the episodes based on true stories which were varied in their themes, plots and content. Themes included...

episode America's First Great Lady as Pocahontas

Pocahontas

Pocahontas was a Virginia Indian notable for her association with the colonial settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. She was the daughter of Chief Powhatan, the head of a network of tributary tribal nations in Tidewater Virginia...

.

She later became known as a 'scream queen

Scream queen

A scream queen is an actress who has become associated with horror films, either through an appearance in a notable entry in the genre as a frequent victim or through constant appearances as the female protagonist...

' after appearing in a number of horror films including The Daughter of Dr. Jekyll

The Daughter of Dr. Jekyll

The Daughter of Dr. Jekyll was a low-budget 1957 horror film directed by Edgar G. Ulmer and released by Allied Artists. Originally this film was released in theaters as a double bill with Dr. Cyclops. It features Gloria Talbott as Janet, the daughter of the infamous Dr. Henry Jekyll, and John Agar...

(1957), The Cyclops

The Cyclops

The Cyclops is a science fiction film starring James Craig and Gloria Talbott.-Synopsis:A test pilot is missing and a search party is sent out in the jungles of Mexico...

(1957), and I Married a Monster from Outer Space

I Married a Monster from Outer Space

I Married a Monster from Outer Space is a 1958 science fiction film, directed by Gene Fowler Jr. and starring Tom Tryon and Gloria Talbott....

(1958).

Her multiple television credits include the syndicated

Television syndication

In broadcasting, syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast radio shows and television shows by multiple radio stations and television stations, without going through a broadcast network, though the process of syndication may conjure up structures like those of a network itself, by its very...

 The Cisco Kid

The Cisco Kid (TV series)

The Cisco Kid is a half-hour American Western television series starring Duncan Renaldo in the title role, The Cisco Kid, and Leo Carrillo as the jovial sidekick, Pancho...

, NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

's western

Western (genre)

The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...

 anthology series Frontier

Frontier (1955 TV series)

This program should not be confused with Frontiers , the British program Frontier , Frontier Justice , Frontier Circus, or Frontier Doctor....

, the syndicated western-themed crime drama Sheriff of Cochise

Sheriff of Cochise

Sheriff of Cochise , renamed U.S. Marshal , is a 58-episode syndicated western-themed crime drama set in Arizona and starring John Bromfield as law enforcement officer Frank Morgan. In the first two seasons, Morgan was sheriff of Cochise County...

with John Bromfield

John Bromfield

John Bromfield was an American film and television actor.Bromfield was born in South Bend, Indiana. He played football and was a boxing champion in college. He served in the United States Navy. In 1948, he twice harpooned a whale in the documentary film Harpoon...

, the syndicated American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

 drama Gray Ghost

Gray Ghost (TV series)

The Gray Ghost is an American historical series which aired in syndication from October 10, 1957, to July 3, 1958. It depicts the true story of Major John Singleton Mosby, a Virginia officer in the Confederate Army, whose cunning and stealth earned him the nickname "Gray Ghost".-Synopsis:The Gray...

, the 1958 Wanted: Dead or Alive episode Fatal Memory, the 1961 NBC western Whispering Smith

Whispering Smith (TV series)

Whispering Smith is a short-lived American Western series that aired on NBC. Based on a 1948 movie, the series stars Audie Murphy as Tom "Whispering" Smith, a police detective in Denver, Colorado...

(as Cora Gates, with Robert Redford

Robert Redford

Charles Robert Redford, Jr. , better known as Robert Redford, is an American actor, film director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival. He has received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime...

 playing her husband, Johnny Gates), and CBS's Rawhide

Rawhide (TV series)

Rawhide is an American Western series that aired for eight seasons on the CBS network on Friday nights, from January 9, 1959 to September 3, 1965, before moving to Tuesday nights from September 14, 1965 until January 4, 1966, with a total of 217 black-and-white episodes...

in the episode, "The Incident of the Calico Gun". She appeared with Robert Harland

Robert Harland

Robert "Bob" Harland is a retired American actor whose principal work was done on television in the late 1950s and 1960s...

 in the 1961 episode "Terror in the Afternoon" of the syndicated crime drama The Brothers Brannagan

The Brothers Brannagan

The Brothers Brannagan is an American crime drama television series that aired in syndication from September 24, 1960, and July 15, 1961.-Synopsis:...

. She appeared in three episodes of Gunsmoke

Gunsmoke

Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West....

: "Home Surgery", "Cody's Code" and "The Cousin" as well as an episode of the Adventures of Superman

Adventures of Superman (TV series)

Adventures of Superman is an American television series based on comic book characters and concepts created in 1938 by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. The show is the first television series to feature Superman and began filming in 1951 in California...

, in which she played an heiress who gives it up to work as a Daily Planet

Daily Planet

The Daily Planet is a fictional broadsheet newspaper in the , appearing mostly in the stories of Superman. The building's original features were based upon the AT&T Huron Road Building in Cleveland, Ohio...

 copy assistant. She also appeared in several Perry Mason

Perry Mason

Perry Mason is a fictional character, a defense attorney who was the main character in works of detective fiction authored by Erle Stanley Gardner. Perry Mason was featured in more than 80 novels and short stories, most of which had a plot involving his client's murder trial...

episodes.

Personal life

Married four times, Talbott died from kidney failure and was survived by her fourth husband, Dr. Patrick Mullally and by two children.

Daughter Mea Mullally, born to Gloria and Dr. Steven J. Capabianco, her second husband, won three gold medals in local ice-skating competitions and is an aspiring actress.

Her mausoleum is in San Fernando Mission Cemetery

San Fernando Mission Cemetery

The San Fernando Mission Cemetery is a Catholic cemetery located at 11160 Stranwood Avenue in the Mission Hills community of the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, California, near the San Fernando Mission....

.

External links