Debra Paget

Debra Paget
with John Derek from the trailer for The Ten Commandments (1956)
Born	Debralee Griffin August 19, 1933 (1933-08-19) (age 75) Denver, Colorado
Years active	1948 - 1962
Spouse(s)	David Street (1958-1958) Budd Boetticher (1960-1961) Louis C. Kung (1964-1980)

Debra Paget (born August 19, 1933) is an American actress and entertainer who rose to prominence in the 1950s and early-1960s in a variety of feature films including Cecil B. DeMille's epic The Ten Commandments and Love Me Tender, the film début of Elvis Presley.

Early life and career

Debra Paget was born in Denver, Colorado to show-business parents. Her birth name was Debralee Griffin; she later took the stage name of Paget from two of her ancestors, Lord and Lady Paget of England. The family moved from Denver to Los Angeles in the 1930s to be close to the developing film industry. Her mother, actress Margaret Griffin, was determined that Debra and her siblings would also make their careers in show business. This ambition was realized: Paget's sisters Judith ("Teala Loring") and Lezlie ("Lisa Gaye"), and her brother Frank ("Ruell Shayne") all entered the business as either cast or crew.^[1]

Paget had her first professional job at age 8,^[1] and acquired some stage experience at 13 when she acted in a 1946 production of Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor. In the period 1950-1956 she also took part in six original radio plays for Family Theater. During those same years, she read parts in four episodes of Lux Radio Theater, sharing the microphone with such actors as Burt Lancaster, Tyrone Power, Cesar Romero, Ronald Colman, and Robert Stack. The latter set included dramatizations of two of her feature films.

Paget's first notable film role was as "Teena Riconti," girlfriend of the character played by Richard Conte, in Cry of the City, a 1948 film noir directed by Robert Siodmak. Fresh out of high school in 1949, she acted in three other films before being signed by 20th Century-Fox.

Her first vehicle under Fox was 1950's Broken Arrow with James Stewart. Paget played an Indian maiden, Sonseeahray('Morningstar'), who gives up her life to save Stewart's character. A box office success, the film was good for her career too. Paget again played an Indian Princess 'Appearing Day' in White Feather (1955) along with Robert Wagner and Jeffrey Hunter and later at MGM replaced Anne Bancroft as the Indian girl in The Last Hunt with Robert Taylor and Stewart Granger. She went on to starring roles in a variety of films, appearing along with such major stars as Richard Basehart, Michael Rennie, Cornel Wilde, Raymond Massey, Vincent Price, Charleton Heston, Yul Brynner, Anthony Quinn, Edward G. Robinson, Elvis Presley, Joseph Cotten, Robert Wagner and Donald Crisp.

Leaving the studio system

The Hollywood studio system dominated American feature film production in the first half of the 20th century. Under it, an actor would sign an exclusive contract to make films for a major studio, such as Fox. An actor would be slated for a specific number of films and could count on appearing with some of the top stars of the day in films produced with at least reasonable competence. Thus, actors just starting out could be sure of getting experience and exposure.

It was a system that worked well, at first, for Paget; she had beauty and talent, and her early Fox films did well, so the studio bolstered her film career. During the year after Princess of the Nile was released, the fan mail Paget received at 20th Century-Fox was topped only by that for Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable.^[2] However, by the mid-1950s it was clear to Fox executives that she could not carry a film on her own.

But it was during this time that she appeared in what would become her signature role - Lilia the water girl, in Cecil B. DeMille's monumental production of The Ten Commandments - Fox lent her to Paramount. Also, in 1955 she broke the exclusivity clause of her contract: White Feather (1955) was not a Fox film. The studio dropped her contract; 1957's The River's Edge was the last film she made for Fox. During this period she tried out for the title role in the 1955 TV series Sheena: Queen of the Jungle but lost out to Irish McCalla.^[3]

After that, Paget's career began to decline. She was typically cast in "exotic" roles such as South Sea Island maidens or middle-eastern harem girls. She travelled to Germany in 1959 to join the cast of Fritz Lang's two-film adventure saga (called in America Journey to the Lost City) in a role that recalled her Shalimar/Taura of Princess of the Nile. Like the Egyptian epic, "Lost City" is remembered chiefly for her energetic dance scenes. She acted in a pair of films shot in Italy. Her final feature film was The Haunted Palace, a 1963 horror film directed by Roger Corman for American International Pictures.

Paget had done television work, both comedy and drama, throughout her career. Her last performance in this medium was in a December 1965 episode of Burke's Law. She retired from entertainment in 1965, after marrying a wealthy Chinese-American oil executive.

Paget turned to Christianity. She hosted her own show, An Interlude with Debra Paget on the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), a Christian network, in the early 90s, and also was involved in Praise the Lord. She comes out of retirement occasionally to appear on TBN as a guest.^[1] Currently, she lives in Houston, Texas, where her sisters Meg and Lezlie Gae (stage name: Lisa Gaye) also reside.

In 1987, the Motion Picture & Television Fund presented Paget with its Golden Boot Award. This award is presented to actors, writers, directors and stunt crew who "have contributed so much to the development and preservation of the western tradition in film and television."^[4]

Marriages and other relationships

In 1958, Paget was married for four months to actor and singer David Street; the marriage was annulled. In 1960, she married Budd Boetticher, a prominent director. They separated after just 22 days, and their divorce became official in 1961. (In his later years, Boetticher ascribed the failure of this marriage to the daunting difficulties he encountered when he went to Mexico to make a film about the life of his friend, legendary bullfighter Carlos Arruza.) Paget left the entertainment field in 1964 after marrying Louis C. Kung, a Chinese-American nephew of Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, who was successful in the oil industry. This third marriage produced a son, Greg. Kung and Paget divorced in 1980.

Acting roles

Feature films

TV appearances

• THE COLGATE COMEDY HOUR (Season 5, Episode 9) – Herself
  Original Air Date: 28 November 1954
• THE COLGATE COMEDY HOUR (Season 5, Episode 20) – Herself
  Original Air Date: 13 March 1955
• The 20th Century-Fox Hour: "Gun in His Hand" (dir. Lewis Allen) – "Mary Conners"
  4 April 1956 (Season 1, Episode 13)
• The Milton Berle Show on June 5, 1956 (as herself, in a skit with Elvis Presley)
• CLIMAX!: "The Man Who Lost His Head" – "Maria"
  Original Air Date: 26 July 1956 (Season 2, Episode 40)
• CLIMAX!: "Carnival at Midnight" – "Natalie"
  Original Air Date: 3 January 1957 (Season 3, Episode 12)
• Premiere Performance (1957 series) Alternated as host with Jeffrey Hunter
• CIMARRON CITY: "The Beauty and the Sorrow" – "Margaret"
  Original Air Date: 7 February 1959 (Season 1, Episode 18)
• WAGON TRAIN: "The Marie Dupree Story" – "Marie Dupree"
  Original Air Date: 19 March 1958 (Season 1, Episode 25)
• WAGON TRAIN: "The Stagecoach Story" – "Angela DeVarga"
  Original Air Date: 30 September 1959 (Season 3, Episode 1)
• RIVERBOAT: "The Unwilling" – "Lela Candida"
  Original Air Date: 11 October 1959 (Season 1, Episode 5)
• THE MAN AND THE CHALLENGE: "Invisible Force" – "Liza Dantes"
  Original Air Date: 17 October 1959 (Season 1, Episode 6)
• THE DUPONT SHOW WITH JUNE ALLYSON: "No Place to Hide" – "Eve Barnes"
  Original Air Date: 21 December 1959 (Season 1, Episode 13)
• JOHNNY RINGO: "East is East" – "Agnes St. John"
  Original Air Date: 7 January 1960 (Season 1, Episode 14)
• THE MILLIONAIRE: "Millionaire Mara Robinson" – "Mara Robinson"
  Original Air Date: 26 April 1960 (Season 6, Episode 31)
• TALES OF WELLS FARGO: "Man of Another Breed" – "Kate Timmons"
  Original Air Date: 2 December 1961 (Season 6, Episode 10)
• RAWHIDE: "Incident in the Garden of Eden" (1960) – "Laura Ashley"
  Original Air Date: 17 June 1960 (Season 2, Episode 31)
• RAWHIDE: "The Hostage Child" (1962) – " Estuella Briscoe"
  Original Air Date: 9 March 1962 (Season 4, Episode 22)
• BURKE'S LAW: "Who Killed Eleanora Davis?" – "Juliet"
  Original Air Date: 20 December 1963 (Season 1, Episode 13)
• BURKE'S LAW: "Who Killed Wimbledon Hastings?" – "Helen Harper"
  Original Air Date: 3 February 1965 (Season 2, Episode 20)

Radio plays

Family Theater

• 1950-11-29 "The Clown" – Debra Paget, Stephen Dunn
• 1952-01-23 "The Thinking Machine" – Donald O'Connor, Debra Paget
• 1953-02-11 "The Indispensable Man" – Lisa Gaye, Robert Stack, Debra Paget
• 1953-12-09 "The Legend of High Chin Bob" – Debra Paget, Walter Brennan
• 1955-07-27 "Fairy Tale" – Debra Paget, Jack Haley
• 1956-11-07 "Integrity" – Debra Paget, Cesar Romero^[5]

Lux Radio Theater

• 1951-01-22 "Broken Arrow" – Burt Lancaster, Deborah Paget
• 1952-09-22 "I'll Never Forget You" – Tyrone Power, Debra Paget, Michael Pate
• 1952-12-22 "Les Misérables" – Ronald Colman, Debra Paget, Robert Newton
• 1953-04-20 "Deadline USA" – Dan Dailey, Debra Paget, William Conrad^[6]

Footnotes

Further reading

• Kinchlow, Ben, "Praise the Lord", TBN Newsletter (USA), 2001, Vol. 28, Issue 9
• Wandworth, James, "Ready for love", Motion Picture and Television Magazine (USA), July 1953, Vol. 85, Issue 6, pp. 38-39 & 73-74
• Weaver, Tom, "First Maid in the Moon", Starlog (USA), April 1998, Issue 249, pp. 63-67
• Weaver, Tom, "Working in the B's", Classic Images (USA), September 2002, Issue 327, pp. 65-68

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Debra Paget

• Debra Paget at the Internet Movie Database
• Debra Paget at Yahoo! Movies