Marie Mahder best known by her stage name

Stage name

A stage name, also called a showbiz name or screen name, is a pseudonym used by performers and entertainers such as actors, wrestlers, comedians, and musicians.-Motivation to use a stage name:...

 Sally Mansfield, was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 television character actress

Character actor

A character actor is one who predominantly plays unusual or eccentric characters. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a character actor as "an actor who specializes in character parts", defining character part in turn as "an acting role displaying pronounced or unusual characteristics or...

; she also had a few small roles in feature films including one with Dean Martin

Dean Martin

Dean Martin was an American singer, film actor, television star and comedian. Martin's hit singles included "Memories Are Made of This", "That's Amore", "Everybody Loves Somebody", "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You", "Sway", "Volare" and "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?"...

 and Jerry Lewis

Jerry Lewis

Jerry Lewis is an American comedian, actor, singer, film producer, screenwriter and film director. He is best known for his slapstick humor in film, television, stage and radio. He was originally paired up with Dean Martin in 1946, forming the famed comedy team of Martin and Lewis...

.

Early career

Born in Oak Park, Illinois

Oak Park, Illinois

Oak Park, Illinois is a suburb bordering the west side of the city of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is the twenty-fifth largest municipality in Illinois. Oak Park has easy access to downtown Chicago due to public transportation such as the Chicago 'L' Blue and Green lines,...

, Mansfield was a moppet radio star in Chicago, Illinois. Her father gave her the nickname "Sally". As a youth she joined the Actors Company of Chicago and the Children's Summer Theatre and studied at the Sherwood Music School. Coming to New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 in 1945, she voiced several radio roles for commercials and on soap operas and dramas. As a chorine

Showgirl

A showgirl is a dancer or performer in a stage entertainment show. Showgirl is also often used as a term for a promotional model in trade fairs and car shows, etc...

 with the Don Arden Dancers, she performed in revue

Revue

A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century American popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from 1916 to 1932...

s in New York and in Las Vegas

Las Vegas metropolitan area

The Las Vegas Valley is the heart of the Las Vegas-Paradise, NV MSA also known as the Las Vegas–Paradise–Henderson MSA which includes all of Clark County, Nevada, and is a metropolitan area in the southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada. The Valley is defined by the Las Vegas Valley landform, a ...

.

Moving to Hollywood, Mansfield met up with a talent scout for Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...

 while she was in the Geller Workshop. She landed a bit part in Forever Female (1953) as the secretary of Paul Douglas

Paul Douglas

Paul Howard Douglas was an liberal American politician and University of Chicago economist. A war hero, he was elected as a Democratic U.S. Senator from Illinois from in the 1948 landslide, serving until his defeat in 1966...

. She was a regular on the CBS

CBS

CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape 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....

 radio show in 1954.

Mansfield gained notoriety for modeling a sweater designed by Edith Head

Edith Head

Edith Head was an American costume designer who won eight Academy Awards, more than any other woman.-Early life and career:...

, which she wore when she entertained U.S. Army troops in Alaska

Alaska

Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...

 and Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

. The sweater's back was padded with heat-producing chemicals, and this then-novel idea along with Mansfield's photo was widely syndicated

Print syndication

Print syndication distributes news articles, columns, comic strips and other features to newspapers, magazines and websites. They offer reprint rights and grant permissions to other parties for republishing content of which they own/represent copyrights....

. She modeled a two-piece bathing suit in Pose! The Picture Magazine, in March 1955.

Television career

Mansfield appeared on many popular TV shows in the 1950s and 1960s, including Death Valley Days

Death Valley Days

Death Valley Days is an American radio and television anthology series featuring true stories of the old American West, particularly the Death Valley area. Created in 1930 by Ruth Woodman, the program was broadcast on radio until 1945. It continued from 1952 to 1975 as a syndicated television series...

, The Donna Reed Show

The Donna Reed Show

The Donna Reed Show is an American sitcom starring Donna Reed as the upper middle class housewife Donna Stone. Carl Betz appears as her pediatrician husband Alex, and Shelley Fabares and Paul Petersen as their teenage children Mary and Jeff. The show originally aired on ABC at 10 pm from September...

, and The Andy Griffith Show

The Andy Griffith Show

The Andy Griffith Show is an American sitcom first televised by CBS between October 3, 1960, and April 1, 1968. Andy Griffith portrays a widowed sheriff in the fictional small community of Mayberry, North Carolina...

, and was a regular on Bachelor Father. She was also an accomplished dancer, performed with the Don Arden

Don Arden

Don Arden , born Harry Levy, was an English music manager, agent and businessman, best known for overseeing the careers of rock groups Small Faces, Electric Light Orchestra and Black Sabbath....

 Dancers in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 and Las Vegas, and entertained US troops in Korea

Korean War

The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...

.

She is perhaps best remembered, however, for her 1954 role as spaceship navigator "Vena Ray" on the science fiction CBS-TV show Rocky Jones, Space Ranger

Rocky Jones, Space Ranger

Rocky Jones, Space Ranger is a syndicated science fiction television serial originally broadcast in 1954. The show lasted for only two seasons and, though syndicated sporadically, dropped into obscurity. But because it was recorded on film rather than being broadcast live as were most other TV...

. She was chosen from 300 who auditioned. Her character anticipated Nichelle Nichols

Nichelle Nichols

Nichelle Nichols is an American actress, singer and voice artist. She sang with Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton before turning to acting...

' much more famous role as a female spaceship bridge officer on the 1960s television series Star Trek

Star Trek

Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...

.. The same year Mansfield carried the Miss Emmy torch at the Palladium

Palladium

Palladium is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Pd and an atomic number of 46. It is a rare and lustrous silvery-white metal discovered in 1803 by William Hyde Wollaston. He named it after the asteroid Pallas, which was itself named after the epithet of the Greek goddess Athena, acquired...

 during the sixth annual Academy of Television Arts & Sciences awards banquet.

Executive Producer, Guy V. Thayer Jr., signed Richard Crane

Richard Crane

Richard Crane was a veteran character actor whose career spanned three decades in films and television. His early career included many uncredited performances in feature films made in the 1940's. He is best remembered for his portrayal of the title role in the TV science fiction series Rocky...

 and Mansfield to five year contracts for Rocky Jones, Space Ranger

Rocky Jones, Space Ranger

Rocky Jones, Space Ranger is a syndicated science fiction television serial originally broadcast in 1954. The show lasted for only two seasons and, though syndicated sporadically, dropped into obscurity. But because it was recorded on film rather than being broadcast live as were most other TV...

. One of the contract stipulations was that the still-single Mansfield would not marry and Crane would not divorce his wife of eight years.

External links

• Sally Mansfield at MST3Kinfo.com