Lola Albright
Encyclopedia
Lola Jean Albright is an American
singer and actress.
Albright worked as a model before moving to Hollywood. She began her motion picture career with a bit part in the 1948 film The Pirate
, and followed it with an important role in the acclaimed 1949
hit Champion. For the next ten years, she appeared in secondary roles in over twenty films, including several 'B'
Westerns. Albright also acted in guest roles on several television series.
In 1958, she won the role of Edie Hart on Peter Gunn
, a television detective series produced by Blake Edwards
and directed by Robert Altman
, with the theme music that made Henry Mancini
famous. Albright played a nightclub singer who was the romantic interest of Peter Gunn, played by Craig Stevens
. In 1959 she was nominated for an Emmy Award
for Best Supporting Actress (Continuing Character) in a Dramatic Series. Her role required singing and led to the 1957 release of her music album Lola Wants You, as well as her album 1959 Dreamsville, in which her songs were accompanied by Henry Mancini and his orchestra.
Albright's popularity led to several major film roles, including Elvis Presley's
1962 film, Kid Galahad
; the 1964 French film Les Felins
by director René Clément; and the epic western
The Way West
.
Later in 1964 she appeared as Duff Daniels in the episode "Sticks and Stones Can Break My Bones" with her former Peter Gunn co-star Craig Stevens
in his short-lived CBS drama Mr. Broadway
.
Later in 1965 she appeared in Bonanza episode The Search as Ann.
In 1966, she won the Silver Bear for Best Actress
award at the 16th Berlin International Film Festival
for her role in Lord Love a Duck
.
In 1968, Albright appeared in The Impossible Years
, with David Niven
and Christina Ferrare, and in Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?
with Doris Day
. She also appeared in the NBC
medical drama
The Eleventh Hour
.
Albright temporarily replaced Dorothy Malone
as Constance Mackenzie on the hit primetime soap opera
Peyton Place
, when Malone had to undergo emergency surgery. Albright continued to perform both in films and as a television guest actor until her retirement in the early 1980s.
from 1951 to 1958. That marriage ended in divorce. Her third and final marriage was to Bill Chadney (from 1960–75), a co-star on Peter Gunn
. This marriage also ended in divorce. She has no children.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
singer and actress.
Albright worked as a model before moving to Hollywood. She began her motion picture career with a bit part in the 1948 film The Pirate
The Pirate
The Pirate is a 1948 American musical feature film from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. With songs by Cole Porter, it stars Judy Garland and Gene Kelly with co-stars Walter Slezak, Gladys Cooper, Reginald Owen, and George Zucco.-Plot:...
, and followed it with an important role in the acclaimed 1949
1949 in film
The year 1949 in film involved some significant events.-Top grossing films :- Awards :Academy Awards:*Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff, starring Bud Abbott and Lou Costello...
hit Champion. For the next ten years, she appeared in secondary roles in over twenty films, including several 'B'
B-movie
A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature....
Westerns. Albright also acted in guest roles on several television series.
In 1958, she won the role of Edie Hart on Peter Gunn
Peter Gunn
Peter Gunn is an American private eye television series which aired on the NBC and later ABC television networks from 1958 to 1961. The show's creator was Blake Edwards...
, a television detective series produced by Blake Edwards
Blake Edwards
Blake Edwards was an American film director, screenwriter and producer.Edwards' career began in the 1940s as an actor, but he soon turned to writing radio scripts at Columbia Pictures...
and directed by Robert Altman
Robert Altman
Robert Bernard Altman was an American film director and screenwriter known for making films that are highly naturalistic, but with a stylized perspective. In 2006, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized his body of work with an Academy Honorary Award.His films MASH , McCabe and...
, with the theme music that made Henry Mancini
Henry Mancini
Henry Mancini was an American composer, conductor and arranger, best remembered for his film and television scores. He won a record number of Grammy Awards , plus a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award posthumously in 1995...
famous. Albright played a nightclub singer who was the romantic interest of Peter Gunn, played by Craig Stevens
Craig Stevens (actor)
Craig Stevens was an American motion picture and television actor.-Early and personal life:Born Gail Shikles, Jr., in Liberty, Missouri, his father was a high school teacher....
. In 1959 she was nominated for an Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
for Best Supporting Actress (Continuing Character) in a Dramatic Series. Her role required singing and led to the 1957 release of her music album Lola Wants You, as well as her album 1959 Dreamsville, in which her songs were accompanied by Henry Mancini and his orchestra.
Albright's popularity led to several major film roles, including Elvis Presley's
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
1962 film, Kid Galahad
Kid Galahad
Kid Galahad is a 1962 musical film starring Elvis Presley as a boxer. The film was released by United Artists. The film opened at #9 at the box office when released in the United States in August 1962...
; the 1964 French film Les Felins
Les félins
Les Félins, also known as The Love Cage and Joy House , is a 1964 black-and-white film based on the novel Joy House by Day Keene. Directed by René Clément and starring Alain Delon, Jane Fonda, and Lola Albright, this mystery/thriller features a criminal on the run from both police and killers...
by director René Clément; and the epic 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...
The Way West
The Way West
The Way West is a 1949 western novel by A. B. Guthrie, Jr. . The novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1950. The book became the basis for a film starring Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum, and Richard Widmark....
.
Later in 1964 she appeared as Duff Daniels in the episode "Sticks and Stones Can Break My Bones" with her former Peter Gunn co-star Craig Stevens
Craig Stevens (actor)
Craig Stevens was an American motion picture and television actor.-Early and personal life:Born Gail Shikles, Jr., in Liberty, Missouri, his father was a high school teacher....
in his short-lived CBS drama Mr. Broadway
Mr. Broadway
Mr. Broadway is a 13-episode CBS adventure and drama television series starring Craig Stevens , formerly of Peter Gunn, as New York City public relations specialist Mike Bell. The program aired at 9 p.m. Eastern time Saturdays from September 26 to December 26, 1964...
.
Later in 1965 she appeared in Bonanza episode The Search as Ann.
In 1966, she won the Silver Bear for Best Actress
Silver Bear for Best Actress
The Silver Bear for Best Actress is the Berlin International Film Festival's award for achievement in performance by an actress.-Awards:- External links :*...
award at the 16th Berlin International Film Festival
16th Berlin International Film Festival
The 16th annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from June 24 to July 5, 1966.-Jury:* Pierre Braunberger * Franz Seitz* Emilio Villalba Welsh* Khwaja Ahmad Abbas* Pier Paolo Pasolini* Lars Forssell* Hollis Alpert...
for her role in Lord Love a Duck
Lord Love a Duck
Lord Love a Duck is a 1966 black comedy starring Roddy McDowall and Tuesday Weld. The film was a satire of popular culture at the time, its targets ranging from progressive education to Beach Party films...
.
In 1968, Albright appeared in The Impossible Years
The Impossible Years
The Impossible Years is a 1965 comedy play by Robert Fisher and Arthur Marx, son of famed comedian Groucho Marx.The comedy revolves around Jonathan Kingsley, a teaching psychiatrist at the local university, his wife, and their two teenaged daughters...
, with David Niven
David Niven
James David Graham Niven , known as David Niven, was a British actor and novelist, best known for his roles as Phileas Fogg in Around the World in 80 Days and Sir Charles Lytton, a.k.a. "the Phantom", in The Pink Panther...
and Christina Ferrare, and in Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?
Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?
Where Were You When the Lights Went Out? is a 1968 American comedy film with Doris Day, directed by Hy Averback. Although it is set in New York City during the major blackout of November 9, 1965, in which 25 million people scattered throughout seven northeastern states and Ontario, Canada lost...
with Doris Day
Doris Day
Doris Day is an American actress, singer and, since her retirement from show business, an animal rights activist. With an entertainment career that spanned through almost 50 years, Day started her career as a big band singer in 1939, but only began to be noticed after her first hit recording,...
. She also appeared in the 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...
medical drama
Medical drama
A medical drama is a television program, in which events center upon a hospital, an ambulance staff, or any medical environment.In the United States, most medical episodes are one hour long and, more often than not, are set in a hospital. Most current medical Dramatic programming go beyond the...
The Eleventh Hour
The Eleventh Hour (1962 TV series)
The Eleventh Hour is an American medical drama about psychiatry starring Wendell Corey, Jack Ging, and Ralph Bellamy, which aired sixty-two new episodes plus selected rebroadcasts on NBC from October 3, 1962, to September 9, 1964.-Series premise:...
.
Albright temporarily replaced Dorothy Malone
Dorothy Malone
Dorothy Malone is an American actress. Her film career began in 1943, and in her early years she played small roles, mainly in B-movies. After a decade in films, she began to acquire a more glamorous image, particularly after her performance in Written on the Wind , for which she won the Academy...
as Constance Mackenzie on the hit primetime soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...
Peyton Place
Peyton Place (TV series)
Peyton Place is an American prime-time soap opera which aired on ABC in half-hour episodes from September 15, 1964 to June 2, 1969.Based upon the 1956 novel of the same name by Grace Metalious, the series was preceded by a 1957 film adaptation. A total of 514 episodes were broadcast, in...
, when Malone had to undergo emergency surgery. Albright continued to perform both in films and as a television guest actor until her retirement in the early 1980s.
Family life
Albright married three times. The name of her first husband is unknown. Her second husband was actor Jack CarsonJack Carson
John Elmer "Jack" Carson was a Canadian-born U.S.-based film actor.Jack Carson was one of the most popular character actors during the 'golden age of Hollywood', with a film career spanning the 1930s, '40s and '50s...
from 1951 to 1958. That marriage ended in divorce. Her third and final marriage was to Bill Chadney (from 1960–75), a co-star on Peter Gunn
Peter Gunn
Peter Gunn is an American private eye television series which aired on the NBC and later ABC television networks from 1958 to 1961. The show's creator was Blake Edwards...
. This marriage also ended in divorce. She has no children.