Ilona Massey was a film, stage and radio performer.

Early life and career

She was born in Budapest

Budapest

Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...

, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Hungary

Hungary

Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

). Billed as "the new Dietrich

Marlene Dietrich

Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...

", she starred in three films with 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...

, including Rosalie

Rosalie (film)

Rosalie is an MGM film adaptation of the 1928 stage musical of the same name. The film was released in December 1937. The film follows the story of the musical but replaces most of the Broadway score with new songs by Cole Porter...

(1937), and with Lon Chaney, Jr.

Lon Chaney, Jr.

Lon Chaney, Jr. , born Creighton Tull Chaney, was an American character actor. He was best known for his roles in monster movies and as the son of famous silent film actor, Lon Chaney...

 in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man

Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man

Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, released in 1943, is an American monster horror film produced by Universal Studios starring Lon Chaney, Jr. as the Wolf Man and Bela Lugosi as Frankenstein's monster. This was the first of a series of "ensemble" monster films combining characters from several film...

(1943) as Baroness Frankenstein. In 1943, she appeared in the Ziegfeld Follies

Ziegfeld Follies

The Ziegfeld Follies were a series of elaborate theatrical productions on Broadway in New York City from 1907 through 1931. They became a radio program in 1932 and 1936 as The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air....

.

In 1947, she starred with Eddy in Northwest Outpost, a musical film

Musical film

The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate...

 composed by Rudolf Friml

Rudolf Friml

Rudolf Friml was a composer of operettas, musicals, songs and piano pieces, as well as a pianist. After musical training and a brief performing career in his native Prague, Friml moved to the United States, where he became a composer...

. In 1949, she starred in Love Happy

Love Happy

Love Happy was the 14th and last starring feature for the Marx Brothers. The film stars Harpo Marx, Chico Marx, and, in a smaller role than usual, Groucho Marx, plus Ilona Massey, Vera-Ellen, Paul Valentine, Marion Hutton, Raymond Burr, Bruce Gordon , and Eric Blore, with a walk-on by Marilyn Monroe...

with the Marx Brothers

Marx Brothers

The Marx Brothers were an American family comedy act, originally from New York City, that enjoyed success in Vaudeville, Broadway, and motion pictures from the early 1900s to around 1950...

. She played Madame Egelichi, a femme fatale

Femme fatale

A femme fatale is a mysterious and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers in bonds of irresistible desire, often leading them into compromising, dangerous, and deadly situations. She is an archetype of literature and art...

spy, and her performance inspired Milton Caniff

Milton Caniff

Milton Arthur Paul Caniff was an American cartoonist famous for the Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon comic strips.-Biography:...

 in the creation of his femme fatale spy, Madame Lynx, in the comic strip "Steve Canyon

Steve Canyon

Steve Canyon was a long-running American adventure comic strip by writer-artist Milton Caniff. Launched shortly after Caniff retired from his previous strip, Terry and the Pirates, Steve Canyon ran from January 13, 1947 until June 4, 1988, shortly after Caniff's death...

". Caniff hired Massey to pose for him.

From 1 November 1954, she hosted DuMont

DuMont Television Network

The DuMont Television Network, also known as the DuMont Network, DuMont, Du Mont, or Dumont was one of the world's pioneer commercial television networks, rivalling NBC for the distinction of being first overall. It began operation in the United States in 1946. It was owned by DuMont...

's The Ilona Massey Show, a weekly musical variety show in which she sang songs with guests in a nightclub stage set, with music provided by the Irving Fields Trio

Irving Fields

Irving Fields is an American pianist and lounge music artist who was born in New York City, New York. Some of his most noteworthy compositions include "Miami Beach Rhumba", "Managua, Nicaragua" and "Chantez, Chantez," covered by Dinah Shore in the 1940s.Fields' most famous album is Bagels &...

. The series lasted through 1955.

Politics

Becoming an American citizen in 1946, she remained strongly anti-communist for what she saw as the destruction of her native country, at one point picketing the United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

 during the 1956 visit of Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev

Nikita Khrushchev

Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...

.

Death

Ilona Massey died of cancer in Bethesda, Maryland

Bethesda, Maryland

Bethesda is a census designated place in southern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, just northwest of Washington, D.C. It takes its name from a local church, the Bethesda Meeting House , which in turn took its name from Jerusalem's Pool of Bethesda...

 and was buried in Virginia's Arlington National Cemetery

Arlington National Cemetery

Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington County, Virginia, is a military cemetery in the United States of America, established during the American Civil War on the grounds of Arlington House, formerly the estate of the family of Confederate general Robert E. Lee's wife Mary Anna Lee, a great...

 near her last husband, Donald Dawson

Donald Dawson

Donald S. Dawson enjoyed a long career as a Washington, D.C. lawyer but is perhaps best remembered as the presidential aide who marshaled Harry S...

, who had served in the United States Air Force Reserve as a Major General.

External links