Audrey Totter

Audrey Totter
from the trailer for The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)
Born	Audrey Mary Totter December 20, 1918 (1918-12-20) (age 90)[1] Joliet, Illinois, U.S.
Years active	1945–1987
Spouse(s)	Leo Fred; 1 child

Audrey Mary Totter (born December 20, 1918, Joliet, Illinois) is an American actress and former MGM contract star of Austrian and Swedish descent. Most references cite December 20, 1918 as her date of birth, although Intelius indicates the year was 1917.

Career

Totter appeared in several dramatic films during the 1940s, and was most often seen in supporting roles in film noir productions. By the early 1950s, her film career was in decline, and she made a transition to television appearing in continuing roles in both comedies and dramas over the following two decades.

Totter began her acting career in radio in the late 1930s and after success in Chicago and New York, was signed to a seven-year film contract with MGM Studios.

She made her film debut in Main Street After Dark (1945) and during the 1940s established herself as a popular female lead. Although she appeared in various film genres, she became most widely known to movie audiences in film noir productions. Initially MGM groomed her to become an important player, and she was paired opposite some of their biggest stars.

Among her successes were:

• The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) with John Garfield and Lana Turner
• Lady in the Lake (1947) with Robert Montgomery and Jayne Meadows
• The Unsuspected (1947 for Warner Bros.) with Claude Rains
• High Wall (1947) with Robert Taylor
• The Saxon Charm (1948) with Montgomery and Susan Hayward,
• Alias Nick Beal (1949) with Ray Milland,
• The Set-Up (1949) with Robert Ryan
• Any Number Can Play (1949) with Clark Gable and Alexis Smith
• Tension (1950) with Richard Basehart.

By the early 1950s the tough talking "dames" she was best known for portraying were no longer fashionable, and as MGM began to work towards creating more family themed films, Totter was released from her contract. Totter was reported to have grown dissatisfied with MGM's handling of her career, only agreeing to appear in Any Number Can Play after Gable intervened.

She worked for Columbia Pictures and 20th Century Fox but the quality of her films dropped sharply, and by the end of the 1950s, her career was in decline. She appeared with Joseph Cotten and William Hopper in the 1957 episode "The Case of the Jealous Bomber" of NBC's anthology series, The Joseph Cotten Show. In 1958, she played boarding house owner Beth Purcell in the NBC western series Cimarron City. The episodes were supposed to have rotated from star George Montgomery as mayor, John Smith as blacksmith/deputy sheriff, and to Totter, but when the writers failed to feature her character, she left the series.

During 1962 and 1963, she starred as homemaker Alice MacRoberts in the ABC situation comedy series Our Man Higgins, with Stanley Holloway in the lead role as an English butler to a suburban American family. She played a continuing role, that of Nurse Wilcox, the efficient head nurse, in the television series Medical Center from 1972 until 1976 and her most recent television appearance was in a 1987 episode of Murder, She Wrote.

Personal life

She was married to Leo Fred, assistant dean of the UCLA School of Medicine from 1953 to his death in 1995. She had dated Cary Grant, Clark Gable, Lew Ayres and Robert Walker in her Hollywood years.

Filmography

• City Killer (1984) (TV)
• The Great Cash Giveaway Getaway (1980) (TV)
• The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again (1979) as Martha Osten (Blind Cabin Widow)
• The Nativity (1978) (TV) as Elizabeth
• U.M.C. (1969) (TV) as Eve Wilcox
• Chubasco (1968) as Theresa
• The Outsider (1967) (TV) as Mrs. Bishop
• Harlow (1965) as Marilyn
• The Carpetbaggers (1964) as Prostitute
• My Darling Judge (1961) (TV)
• Man or Gun (1958) as Fran Dare
• Jet Attack (1958) as Tanya Nikova
• Ghost Diver (1957) as Anne Stevens
• The Vanishing American (1955) as Marion Warner
• A Bullet for Joey (1955) as Joyce Geary
• Women's Prison (1955) as Joan Burton
• Massacre Canyon (1954) as Flaxy
• Mission Over Korea (1953) as Kate, nurse-lieutenant
• Champ for a Day (1953) as Miss Gormley
• Cruisin' Down the River (1953) as Sally Jane
• Man in the Dark (1953) as Peg Benedict
• Woman They Almost Lynched (1953) as Kate Quantrill aka Kitty McCoy
• My Pal Gus (1952) as Joyce
• Assignment: Paris (1952) as Sandy Tate
• The Sellout (1952) as Cleo Bethel
• FBI Girl (1951) as Shirley Wayne
• The Blue Veil (1951) as Helen Williams
• Under the Gun (1951) as Ruth Williams
• Tension (1950) as Mrs. Claire Quimby
• Any Number Can Play (1949) as Alice Elcott
• The Set-Up (1949) as Julie Thompson
• Alias Nick Beal (1949) as Donna Allen
• The Saxon Charm (1948) as Alma
• High Wall (1947) as Dr. Ann Lorrison
• The Unsuspected (1947) as Althea Keane
• The Beginning or the End (1947) as Jean O'Leary
• Lady in the Lake (1947) as Adrienne Fromsett
• The Secret Heart (1946) (voice) (uncredited) as Dinner Party Guest
• The Cockeyed Miracle (1946) as Jennifer Griggs
• The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) as Madge Gorland
• Ziegfeld Follies (1946) (voice) (uncredited) as Telephone Operator
• The Sailor Takes a Wife (1945) as Lisa
• Adventure (1945) (uncredited) as Ethel
• The Hidden Eye (1945) (uncredited) as Perfume saleslady
• Her Highness and the Bellboy (1945) (uncredited) as Mildred
• Bewitched (1945) (voice) as Karen
• Dangerous Partners (1945) as Lili Roegan
• Main Street After Dark (1945) as Jessie Belle Dibson

References

1. ^ (some sources, including Intelius indicate 1917)

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Audrey Totter

• Audrey Totter at the Internet Movie Database
• Audrey Totter Homepage
• Intelius search site