Anne Rooney

In the mid 1940s, there was a sudden onslaught of pretty, petite and cute actresses who were often not great beauties, not that great as thespians, but were able singers and charming to booth. Jane Powell, Deanna Durbin, Ann Blyth, just to name a few of the best known… However, a great of such girls didn’t make the grade – Anne Rooney firmly belongs in this category. Nice looking in a girl-next-door kind of way, with a solid voice and colorful vaudeville background, she was seemingly perfect fit for the times, but somehow, she just didn’t work. Let’s learn more about her.

EARLY LIFE

Shirley Anne McCully was born on August 15, 1926, in Santa Clara, California, to Ernest McCully and Hazel Rooney, both professional vaudeville dancers. She had an older sister, Mary Virginia, born in July 14, 1920. She grew up in Santa Clara.

Anne adopted her parents’ profession quiet early, as she was groomed to go on stage much liker her sister. At five she was guest star with Al Pearce and his Radio Gang, and at eight she joined her mother and dad, Hazel and Ed McCully and Virginia in a coast-to-coast vaudeville tour. They were known as “Mac’s Merrymakers.” At thirteen she made her film bow in “Flicker Fever.” She gained some movie acting experience thus as a child actress in the old Educational (as they were called) comedies. I won’t profile these comedies as they are no on her IMDB page.

Anne, at 16, was singing with Muzzy Marcellino‘s band at the Glendale, California, Civic Auditorium when she was resigned for the movies and appeared in “Babes On Broadway,” with her “namesake,” Mickey Rooney. A talent scout spotted Anne when she was singing with Muzzy Marcel-lino’s orchestra in Glendale, invited her to the studio, the next day she had a contract.

And that is how is started!

CAREER

Anne made her grown up debut in Babes on Broadway, a Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland happy-go-lucky, “let’s stage a musical” musical. The story isn’t important (like there is one) – just enjoy the colorful sets, the nice music and good dancing sequences, plus Mickey and Judy!

Anne signed with MGM and appeared in a two of their movies: Calling Dr. Gillespie (of the famous Dr. Gillespie movie serie,s with Lionel Barrymore as the eponymous Gillespie), For Me and My Gal , a charming, breezy and air light Judy Garland/George Murphy musical with a special appearance by Gene Kelly!).

Anne was sacked by MGM afterwards and signed by Universal, and she continued her musical trajectory: her first movie for the new studio was Henry Aldrich Gets Glamour, one of the Henry Aldrich series of movies. Not that well-known today, Henry Aldrich was a popular series back in the 1930s and 1940s, and this was the 7th movie in the series, where Harry becomes extra popular overnight to his date with a movie star, and girls start to flock around him. Anne plays one of the adoring girls, but is overshadowed by more popular actresses like Diana Lynn, Frances Gifford and Gail Russell. That same year Anne also made Follow the Band,  a run of the mill light romantic comedy where the actors weren’t even the main attraction, but you have a dance band playing good music and featuring cameo performances of stars as night club acts. So, Eddie Quillian and Mary Beth Hughes fade as the leading couple, and we have Leon Errol and Leo Carrillo among others. Plus a very small, early role by Robert Mitchum!

Anne’s string of musicals continued with Always a Bridesmaid, a complete forgotten Andrews sisters musical. Then came This Is the Life, an overall enjoyable comedy about a love triangle between the sweet soprano Susanna Foster, goofy but endearing tween Donald O’Connor and handsome and suave Patric Knowles (the triangle becomes a square when Peggy Ryan comes in!).

Then finally came Anne’s five minutes of fame and her first leading role. The year was 1944, the movie was Slightly Terrific. However, it ended up a real fiasco for Anne – why? Well, because she was the thinnest part of the movie. The film’s plot is the typical variation of the “Let’s Put on a Show” plot, and the only thing carrying the movie is the veteran comedic actor Leon Errol, delightfully funny as twins of totally opposite personalities. You can’t take his eyes of him – he such a master of his craft and obviously had impeccable timing. Other than him, there is absolutely nothing to recommend this bland mess. Not long after this movie, Anne and Universal went their separate ways.

Anne came back to movies in 1946, with Freddie Steps Out, the second of the “Teen-Agers” musical series at Monogram. Monogram was infamous for being a cheapskate studio, and most of their movies are so low-budget looking that you have to try hard and squint not to see it and try to enjoy the story and the actors. The Teen Agers musical series isn’t the worst thing they churned. Tailor made to showcase young singer Freddie Stewart, who achieved some degree of success on the radio, this particular movie has such afar fetched story (A high school student is mistaken for a famous radio singer who goes missing) that there is too much suspension of disbelief. Ah, at least you can see Frankie Darro and Noel Niell in it.

Anne played the leading lady’s (June Pressier) sister, and repeated the same role in the third movie of the series, High School Hero. This one also has a predictable, half-stupid story (the leading man’s school has a rivalry with another school in town and during a football game, when the chips are down, they know they are gonna lose, but as a joke one of the cheerleaders goes in drag in a football uniform and the girl ends up their secret weapon). All in all, the series went on for five more movies, stopped in 1948, and took down with it the leading man’s movie career.

PRIVATE LIFE

Anne was a scant five feet and weighs less than a hundred pounds. Since she was underage when she got her first contract, she has to obtain court approval of the said contract calling for initial salaries of $75 a week. The other girl who also got the same contract was Donna Reed. Donna ended up more successful than Anne in the acting stakes.

When she came to Hollywood, Anne’s was publicized in large part via her instantly recognizable moniker – namely, Annie Rooney was a famous character played by Mary Pickford back in the 1920s. Here is a typical article of the day:

Anne was born the same year Mary Pickford played the title role in the film production, “Little Annie Rooney.” – Anne’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. E. E. McCully, proved prophetic when they named their daughter Anne Rooney McCully on her birth at San Jose, California. Now 17, Anne has almost precisely the same measurements as Miss Pickford. She’s exactly five feet tall and weighs an even 90 pounds. And she is a likely choice for today’s “America’s Sweetheart” title.

Like many starlets, Ann did her share of war effort, touring camps extensively. Despite being a vaudevillian, Anne hadn’t been out of the state of California until she left on a camp tour through the middle west and deep south. Here is an article:

As we have often said there are very few motion picture actresses, especially the starlets, who can contribute much in the way of entertainment when they make a personal appearance. Anne ‘Rooney, working here and there for Universal and now appearing as headliner on the National Base Tour. ‘

Winsome Anne, a rising young starlet, comes to Camp Livingston Sunday for a five day visit and a series of formal and informal visits about the camp. Although not related to Mickey Rooney, she was signed for a term contract after being seen in a Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland film young singers of popular songs. Miss Rooney is scheduled to arrive at Livingston Sunday morning and following dinner.

As for Anne’s love life, John Hopkins, of a wealthy Cleveland family, once engaged to June Preisser, was her first serious beau and first fiancee. She and her mother had gone to the place where Jack was stationed and all seems very serious and very close to the altar. For unknown reasons, the relationship was terminated not long afterwards and no wedding took place. Anne than dated Captain Paul Penrose, a Western Airlines pilot.

Anne left Hollywood in 1944, and worked as a showgirl in the Copacabana. There she met and married Jerry Brooks, Los Angeles and Miami cafe owner, also called the zipper king by the press. He once owned part of the famous Slapsy Maxie’s night club. They settled in Los Angeles and their son Steven Jerome was born there on July 24, 1948.

Sadly in 1949, before their son was a year old, they were dogged by persistent rift rumors, which were later confirmed by Ann’s mother, Mrs. Hazel McCully. Pretty soon Anne consulted attorney Buron Fitts and sued for divorce. Their marriage was finished by early 1950.

Anne became Donald O’Connor’s personal assistant, or his Girl Friday, and stayed in Hollywood, albeit not as an actress. In the early 1950s she met Vincent Nuccio and started dating him. Nuccio was born in 1914 to Joseph Nuccio and Josephine Garogalo in Ohio. Nuccio married 16 January 1936 Yolanda Palmieri in Ohio, and moved with her to California, where he started an insurance business that boomed over the ages, making him a rich man. Sadly, Yolanda died sometime in the late 1940s, making him a widower.

Vincent and Anne were first married on February 2, 1957, settling and living the high life in Beverly Hills. Since, Nuccio was very wealthy and fond of the social life, they became the golden party-giving couple of the West Coast. However, their domestic life was far from tranquil and stable.

The Nuccios divorced in 1963 and remarried within a year, On may 15, 1963 (that was fast). But there was one, itsy-bitsy problem: a prenuptial agreement Anne signed before tying the knot the second time around. The document allegedly entitled her to zippo. Then, in 1970ys, she decided to divorce Nuccio again. She wanted half the estimated $10 million in community property. And that’s why Annie went to renown lawyer Marvin Mitcheslon, who was famous for his palimony cases.

Here is an article about their messy divorce:

After setting aside part of a prenuptial agreement that said the wife would receive a flat sum of $5,000 in event of divorce, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge Monday awarded former movie singer and dancer Annie Rooney $12,000 a month support from wealthy insurance executive Vincent Nuccio. Under terms of the judgment, the 54-year-old Miss Rooney could receive as much as $3.5 million from Nuccio if she lives out the 28 years of her acturial life expectancy, her lawyer, Marvin Mitchelson, said. According to Mitchelson, Nuccio. 65, also agreed that in event of his death, payments to Miss Rooney from his estate would continue until she died or remarried. The ruling was not viewed as a victory for Miss Rooney by Nuccio’s lawyer, Marshall Zollo, who said her attempt was to “overturn the entire prenuptial agreement and get half the estate.” “The court record showed that . . . for the purpose of this hearing, the husband’s net worth was $5 million,” Zollo said. “She was trying to get half of that and she got zero. She got support but none of the property.” As a matter of law, Judge Frances Rothschild ruled invalid the section of the agreement entered into prior to the couple’s second marriage in 1963 that limited the amount of spousal payment to $5,000. The judge, however, upheld all remaining portions of the prenup.

Anne and Vince divorced, and she lived the rest of her days in California, out of the newspaper radar.

Anne Rooney Nuccio died on August 16, 2006, in Toluca Lake, California.

 

Diane Cassidy

Pretty tennis player and part time model, Diane Cassidy was noticed by Mervyn Leroy and hoped to become like his other protegees, Lana Turner and Clark Gable. Sadly, this didn’t’ happen, as Diane only made a few movies (in minor roles). Always socially active and beaued by more than a few millionaires, it wasn’t a surprise when Diane retired to become a socialite.

EARLY LIFE

Diane Mary Cassidy was born on March 8, 1932, in Southampton, Long Island, New York, to Joseph and Mae Cassidy. Her younger sisters were Clare, born in 1935 and Jean, born in 1939. Her father worked as a manager for a private practice.

Diane grew up in Southampton, and started playing tennis when she was a bit more than a toddler – by her teen years, she was known as a local tennis champion. After graduating from high school, she commuted to New York City for work – she began as a Powers model in the city, modeling undies. Her coincident display of gams and curves nailed down her movie contract. How exactly? Well, while she was in Hollywood on vacation, Mervyn LeRoy tapped her on the shoulder at a Hollywood restaurant, and it was the beginning of a new life for Diane. She was literary caught eating hamburger and onions.

LeRoy was famous in Hollywood for having an sharp eye always on the lookout for future stars – his eagle eye spotted Lana Turner in a sweater outfit and Clark Gable acting a small part in a stage play Accordingly, everybody was hoping that Diane was going to be next star to achieve such caliber of fame. Diane sailed through a screen test, was signed to a $200 per week contract as a start and will draw $1700 eventually every week. And so it started!

CAREER

Diane had a credited, but not really meaty role in Invitation, a high quality weepie with Dorothy McGuire playing a sickly rich girl and Van Johnson plays her “bought” husband (of course she doesn’t know this). The plot is pretty obvious from here, with a third women barging in (this time it’s my favorite, Ruth Roman), and overprotective father, played by Louis Calhoun, trying to hush things up. While no masterpiece, it’s a solid, good movie, with  a great performance by Dottie, so a recommendation by all means. I never particularly liked Van, but when he gets serious, he’s much better than playing the nice boys next door he usually did during his MGG years.

Diane than did a string of MGM musical movies (six of them to be precise). Whoa, sound nice doesn’t it? Well, here we go:

The first musical was Skirts Ahoy!, a Esther Williams musical. Unlike many of other movies Esther made for MGM; this one isn’t a blown out spectacle with impressive aquatic sequences, but s more low key, character driven drama sprinkled with singing/dancing numbers. The viewer is left to decide if he likes it or not – but if you want your typical golden age musicals, this movie is not for you. If you want an endearing, low calorie drama with an upbeat message, this might just do the trick. The plot is very bare bones: Three young ladies sign up for some kind of training at a naval base. They fall in love with three different men and try to woo them. While a bit outdated, overall it’s a fine movie. A plus is seeing a whole array of talented performers doing musical numbers – Bilyl Eckstine, DeMarco Sisters, Debbie Reynolds…

The second musical was Lovely to Look At. The movie has quite a basic premise: Howard Keel plays an aspiring Broadway producer, trying to get a new musical off the ground. When his fellow impresario, comic Red Skelton, inherits Parisian dress shop they and pal Gower Champion decide they’ll sell up and splash the cash on their stage show – until they catch a look of the tasty co-owners (Kathryn Grayson and Marge Champion). They fall in love and the rest is history. While it’s just a big fat piece of fluff, it’s gorgeous fluff with great dancing, good singing and some stunning fashions (designed by the all time great Adrian). Diane+’s role is small, and it seemed she wasn’t particularly going forward in her career.

Diane’s third musical was Because You’re Mine, a problematic Mario Lanza movie. Problematic! How and why? Well, there is a story how Lanza didn’t want to make the movie and to sabotage it, he gained a massive amount of weight. He also didn’t like his co-star, Broadway alumna Doretta Morrow, and found the story unappealing. You can guess why – they used the same old Lanza character and put him in the army. Extremely unimaginative. Anyway, the final product isn’t as bad as it reputation warrants, but it’s far from Lanza’s best work.

Diane’s fourth movie was Everything I Have Is Yours, a Marge and Gower Chamption movie. Since the Champions were very limited as thespians, their movies have to hide this sad fact and boast their dancing ability to compensate. This movie services it well enough. The story is pretty simple – a professional husband/wife dancing team sound familiar) are having marital problems and so on and so on. Of course, there is a happy end and tons of dancing, so maybe it’s a good movie to watch on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

Diane’s last movie was Million Dollar Mermaid, this being of Esther William’s most famous movies. It’s actually a biopic of Annette Kellerman, the trailblazing female swimmer, but the whole phrase became synonymous with Esther (especially after her biography was called like the movie).  Like any typical Hollywood biopic, most of the plot of Million Dollar Mermaid is fictitious and made more theatrical than it was in reality, but one didn’t watch these movies for the story but for the aqua ballet and the dramatics. Victor Mature plays the husband with an “I can sell anything” charm and it’s interesting seeing him in such a role (and yes, this is pure imagination too, Kellerman’s husband wasn’t a Hollywood promoter).

And that was it from Diane!

PRIVATE LIFE

When Diane came to Hollywood, she was legally under age, so her contract had to be court approved. Sadly, it seems that Diane had some previous debts she had to cover first –  at least so she told Judge Frank S. Swain, and claimed that these debts shrink her $200-a-week salary to $70. The judge ordered the young actress to put 10% of her salary into U.S. Savings Bonds, and gave her a discourse on being thrifty. Very handy advice!

Here is an article about Diane from this period:

For a 19-year-old girl Diane combines the freshness of “sweet sixteen” and the smoldering oomph of the more mature film lovelies. Take the word of such an old hand as producer Mervyn LeRoy that Miss Cassidy is “The Whistle Bait Queen of .Hollywood.” LeRoy discovered the pulsating beauty at a race track, and followed her until she signed on the dotted line. Diane, only recently removed from Southampton, N.Y., told International News Service demurely that “Some cheesecake is awfully sexy and not too nice—but I don’t mind the refined type.”

That statement by the M-6-M beauty should bring on more refined cheesecake, or just more cheesecake by any other name. Miss Cassidy is willowy, and while not threatening the throne of Jane Russell, can do a lot of things to a bathing suit. Diane lifted her two arms expressively to the skies, like a gal in a filmy evening gown looking at the moon: “I think the kind of cheesecake is all right where they take your picture in a filmy, evening gown looking at the moon.” Lest students of the more charming gender of anatomy be discouraged, Miss Cassidy added: “It’s all right to take pictures on the beach, too—if you’re wearing a suit that a girl actually would don to go to the beach.” The light auburn-haired charmer added coyly: “Anyway, why should I object to  cheesecake? Every girl has to do it in Hollywood, unless she is Jane Wyman, a Greer’ Garson or somebody like that.”

“I’m not in love, but I was several times back in Southampton,” says Miss Cassidy. “Right now Hollywood has been such a thrill that I haven’t given romance a thought But, maybe sometime, huh?” Her biggest thrill, she said breathlessly: “The other day Clark Gable said ‘Hello, Baby’.”

In 1949, when she was 17 years old, Diane was pretty serious about wealthy Peter Salm, who she dated for almost a year. Salm was the son of Millicent Rogers and her first husband, Austrian aristocrat and tennis player, Ludwig “Ludi” von Salm-Hoogstraeten. Salm owned a huge property in Diane’ hometown, Southampton, and this is probably how they met.

Anyway, in early 1950, the relationship broke apart and Peter started dating Charlene Wrightmsan. Not the one to be idle, Diane made  Peter a repartee by going out with the young and wealthy Bob Neal. It was a no go, since Peter and Diane didnt’ reconcile, and rarely saw each other from then on. In October 1950, she was seen with Joe Perrin, but they busted before the year was out.

In 1951, Diane was dated by both Huntington Hartford and by Pat Di Cicco. Both liked pretty ladies and both dated them by the shovel load. Pat was involved with the temperamental tennis star Gussie Moran at the same time, and the press was expecting fireworks, but in the end nothing really dramatic happened. She also dated Ted Briskin – Ted planed in from Chicago and spent a few days at his ex, Betty Hutton’s home with the kids, to whom he gave a pair of Shetland ponies. Afterwards he took Diane Cassidy to the Beverly Gourmet and to Ciro’s and from having another date with Gwen Caldwell.

In late 1951, Diane got hooked up with wealthy Chicago paper mill heir, Michael Butler, son of Paul Butler. This proved to be her most endearing, serious relationship – she went to Hollywood, but he kept in touch, and the two youngsters agreed to meet in Acapulco, Mexico, when she caught some free time. They did meet there in February 1952, had a grand time there, and upon their return, were feted as almost engaged and just a step away from matrimony.

In Mid 1952, Diane decided to take a European vacation and sailed to France. While there, she met the love of her life. Thus, In October 1952, married wealthy Venezuelan oil king, Bartholmay Sanchez. Fully named Bartholme Sanchez Pernia, he was born on October 12, 1913, in Venezuela.

The couple settled jointly in New York (with a Park Avenue address) and Venezuela, and had two children, a son, Bartholome Ricardo, born in 1953, and a daughter, Diana, born in about 1955. They traveled around quite a bit and lived the jet set life.

There was not a whole lot I could find about the Sanchez family, and it seems the most famous person in the family was his nephew, Bartus Bartolomes, who became a noted artist. Here is a bit about him:

The family of Bartus owned the “Sanchez Pernia Estate”, one of the largest coffee plantations in the country covering more than 90,000 hectares from 1898 up to 1960’s. However, the newly emerging governments from the sixties, riding the waves and riches of a new oil boom, began to expropriate the land and reduced the agricultural production of coffee and other crops to a minimum.

In the expropriated lands, the government promoted and built the Uribante Caparo Hydroelectric Dam, a project that became detrimental to the Eco-systems of three Venezuelan states: Táchira, Mérida and Barinas, decreasing the productivity of the traditionally cultivated areas, affecting the rivers, local plants and bird migrations because among other things, this area was a pathway or transit corridor used by birds who migrated from Canada to Argentina and vice verse.

These expropriations and the negative effect they had on the environment he grew up in, affected the sensitivity of Bartus. He increasingly devoted his creativity to establishing links between art and water, and he promoted some cultural events that highlight the consequences of human intervention on the environment such as environmental pollution and global warming. Bartus considers the natural environment a legacy that must be protected, and water is the link that keeps all natural environments healthy one way or another.

The Sanchez settled in West Palm Beach in the end. Bartholome died at some point (couldn’t find the exact date of death).

Diane Cassidy Sanchez is still alive today and lives in West Palm, Beach, Florida.

 

Lucille Barkley

Lucille Barkley was a pretty girl who came to Hollywood with great expectations, and, unlike many starlets, was not without some background – she was a semi-seasoned actress who did some theater and was even educated in the acting arts. Against all odds, she did manage to nab roles in several high-profile movies and was a highly publicized personality in Hollywood for a few months. However, her career ultimately went nowhere and she retired after 30 something odd films and TV appearances. All in all , not a bad record for a place where most girls stay for a year or two (if they are lucky!)

EARLY LIFE

Lucy Oshinski was born on November 3, 1924, in Ranshaw, Pennsylvania to Florian and Verna Oshinski. She was one of nine children – her siblings were out of five sisters and three brothers, namely, from elder to younger: Stella, Anette “Tessie”, Helen, Eleanore, Henry, Thomas, Evelyn and Donald.  Her father worked in the coal mining industry.

Lucy spent her childhood years in Ranshaw, which was a typical Pennsylvania coal town. She attended St. Anthony’s Elementary School, and after completing her freshman year in Coal Township High School, Lucille moved with her parents to Rochester, N. Y., where she graduated from Benjamin Franklin High School.

Lucille got her start in show business with the Rochester Community Players with whom she had roles in “My Sister Eileen” and “Arsenic and Old Lace”. She also was a model far Eastman Kodak Company and took prizes in a number of beauty contests before going to New York. After studying a few semesters at the American Academy of Dramatic Art, with the goal of becoming a Hollywood film star. She also did modeling for the prestigious Conover agency and a little dramatics for a couple of years.

While in New York, An agent had discovered her, and whisked her of to Los Angeles. Lucy expected she’d get a contract with 20th Century possibly a lush role in “Forever Amber.” After several weeks of tests, it didn’t work out that way. Lucy was out of work and going nowhere fast.

The agent planned to have her tested but one afternoon Lucille walked Into the Beverly-Wiltshire hotel and was accosted by a stranger, who said: “You should be in the movies.” Yep, he was a Paramount talent scout, he approached her and asked if the “pretty girl” would be interested in a movie career. The “pretty girl” was definitely interested, the studio executives were impressed, and she signed a contract without ever having made a screen test.

CAREER

Lucille started her career as one of the many, many girls featured in the Variety Girl, and continued her array of uncredited performance with Where There’s Life, a mid-tier Bob Hope movie with Bob playing his usual self (this time, a hapless American son of an Eastern European monarch wounded in an assassination attempt becomes a target for a terrorist organization). Then came another Hope vehicle, Road to Rio (at least this one is a classic). This was just the first of several classic that Lucy was to grace, back to back.

Lucille had the luck to appear in one of the bets thrillers ever made, The Big Clock. Ray Milland plays a charming but caddish man who become s a pawn in a deadly game all cooked up by Charles Loughton’s impeccably-played, deliciously devious newspaper tycoon. Then Lucy had a modest but visible role in another classic A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, this time with Bing Crosby.

Lucille appeared in an unusual MGM film, the hard-boiled noir Scene of the Crime. We have Van Johnson, the perpetually sunny golden boy of the studio, playing a disillusioned, bitter cop who gets smacked left and right but never gives up. While the story is your typical noir staple, the script is witty and the performances are surprisingly good. Of special note is Gloria de Haven, playing  a femme fatale and begin very good at it (unlike her usually happy-go-lucky musical roles).

Lucy than appeared in two mediocre crime movies. The first one was Trapped (not a bad movie overall but made a shoestring budget,and as a plus, you can see Barbara Payton is one of her all to few movie roles! While not a top thespian, she sure had that something and could set the screen aflame!) and The Great Plane Robbery (which is completely forgotten today!)

Lucille then appeared in Diana Lynn cuteness-abound movie aptly called Peggy (they so rarely make movies like that today!), and the exotic escapist fare, The Desert Hawk (with Yvonne De Carlo, who acted in so many such movies I get confused often).  Lucy continued appearing in lightweight movies with The Milkman , where Donald O’Connor and Jimmy Durante star as ambitious milkman and his mentor.  O’Connor is a good physical comedy actor, and his movies work at least on that level. Next stop – Frenchie, a low-calorie western where Shelley Winters plays a saloon queen returning to her hometown of Bottleneck to find the vagrants who killed her father 15 years earlier. It’s loosely based on Destry Rides again, and features a strong female lead, played by the brassy Shelley Winters – more than enough reasons to watch the movie!

In 1951,m Lucille reached the peak of her career with Bedtime for Bonzo, where she actually had a credited, and quite meaty part. Yep, she was the “wrong woman” compared to Diana Lynn’s right woman, but still, it was major progress for her career. The movie itself, which was wildly successful is a thin but amusing comedy, with Ronald Regana playing a scientists who tries to prove that people are a product of their upbringing not genetics, with a help of a very lively chimp named Bonzo. Guess the rest!

She continued in uncredited parts in Up Front, a comedy based on the famed W.W.II cartoons: Lowbrow G.I.s Willie and Joe , and Francis Goes to the Races, one of the Francis series of movies. Lucille finally got a larger role in The Fat Man, a Damon Rumyon movie where the eponymous fat detective tries to solve a dentists’ murder.

Lucille than appeared in a string of low-budget movies – western Arizona Manhunt (where she played one of the leading roles but the leading female role went to a 13-year-old girl!), the adventure The Golden Horde (actually a pretty interesting movie with Ann Blyth and David Farrar fighting against Ghengis Khan – they are a great acting combo!),  Flight to Mars (an early science fiction movies), and the laughable Prisoners of the Casbah,with the always hard-boiled Gloria Grahame playing a demure princess (can’t even imagine this!). The only exception to the low-budget rule was the superb Otto Preminger film noir, Angel Face, with Robert Mitchum and Jean Simmons, where Lucille plays a waitress.

Aware that her movie career left much to be desired, Lucille turned to TV, doing quite a bit of TV shows. Her television engagements have given her a role in a Fireside Theater production, a commercial spot on Groucho Marx‘s quiz show, some Boston Blackie bits and an appearance on Walter Winchell‘s TV program, among others.

Lucille made only two tow more movies before retirement: the first was The Other Woman, an above average Hugo Haas movie. Like all of Haas’s work, it’s a low-budget affair and more than  with surprising flashes of genius and some interesting dialogue thrown in. Not for everybody’s taste, but very good nonetheless. The bad, oversexualized gal, a staple in all of Haas’ movies, here was played by Cleo Moore.  

Lucille’s last movie was Women’s Prison, a gritty drama set in a woman’s prison where the head superintendent played by the superb Ida Lupino is the most dangerous person inside the prison walls. Featuring a ton of good actresses (Jan Sterling, Cleo Moore, Phyllis Thaxter…), it’s a rare all-woman-cast movie and it’s a good one. While no A class classic, it’s well made, swift, with good pacing and with great acting performances.

And that’s it from Lucille!

PRIVATE LIFE

When she first came to Hollywood, her press agent tried to boast her PR standing by having Lucille claim that all Hollywood men are wolves. According to the papers, Lucy made a test for Forever Amber, but blushes so intensely that she was impossible to photograph normally – they had to wait for the blushes to subside in time. The reporters teased her about it, but when reporter ran I into her again she said “I may be blushing, But you should  see’ the gown in which I am going to wear!” Positive thinking Lucy! Here is another article from that period:

Luscious Lucille Barkley who once rated all Hollywood man as wolves, doesn’t have time any more to be beset by them. She’s too busy with her dramatic lessons, now that Paramount has signed her to it very nice contract. ’1 hardly have a minute to myself,” Lucille said when your reporter ran into her on the set of •‘Variety Girl.” “Not even tune for those wolves you used to tall: about?” your reporter persisted, “Oh, no”, replied the brunette beauty from Rochester, N. Y “I am too busy now!”

As for her love life, Lucille Barkley and Tony Curtis were an item for some time in the early 1950s. After the broke up, she was seen jitter-bugging like mad with Joan Davis’s ex-fiance, Danny Ellman. This also didn’t last long.

In 1950, she nearly drowned at. Lake Arrowhead while water skiing. A pullmotor saved her just in time.

Lucille first really serious romance in Hollywood was with manufacturer Lester Deutsch. They dated for almost a year, but broke up for  unspecified reasons. She also had a tempestuous, on off relationship with Edmond Herrscher, who was known as the romanfickle Nobhillionaire among the newspaper set. He was the man who ho turned The 20th Century Fox movie studio back-lot into the futuristic Century City entertainment and business complex, and who was quite a bit older than Lucille.

Up next was Pete Rugulo, who used to date Betty Hutton, but that too didn’t last too long. Not long after came Brad Dexter, who was later married to Peggy Lee for 10 days (or something like this). At some point, Lucille dated Paul Ellis. There was a really CONFUSING situation observed at Ciro’s when Martha Martin Ellis ring-sided with Roger Valmy at the next table ‘ sat her ex, Paul, with Lucille and just adjacent Paul’s recent steady date, Joy Windsor, with Stanley Richardson. Imagine the great table talk!

Around this time, Lucille discovered a thief stole her make-up case and Abbott and Costello TV film wardrobe from her car while she was having a cup of coffee at Schwab’s. What a great booty for the robbers, eh?

Lucy falls of the newspaper radar in the late 1950s, marrying and opting for a quiet family life. She married a Mr. Burgener, moved with him to San Diego, and had a daughter, Lisa C., born on July 30, 1960. Lucy and Burgener divorced at some point, and she moved back to Rochester, where most of her family was still living.

Lucille Oshinski Burgener died on August 11, 1998, in Rochester, New York. (note: her IMDB has a wrong date of death!)