![]() There, she said, she spent her time alternately "reading books on philosophy" and "roughing it." Mayo's roles diminished, she described herself in interviews as a loner perfectly content to stay at the 60,000-acre cattle ranch she owned with her husband in New Mexico. "As far as acting goes, you just follow him and you can't fail."Īs Ms. "Mister dynamite," she told an interviewer. She was far more enthusiastic about Cagney, especially about their physically difficult scenes in "White Heat." She had little praise for the manic Kaye - "he was all right" was the most she said in later years. The film considered by many to be their finest was "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" (1947), based on James Thurber's classic story of a henpecked man's active fantasy life. Goldwyn seemed to hit a surefire formula when he teamed the glamorous Mayo with the frenetic Kaye. ![]() Survivors include a daughter and three grandchildren. ![]() "He just sat there watching me," she once said of their courtship, "and then he walked right up and kissed me." They were married from 1947 - after he divorced his first wife - until his death in 1973. Among her first was "Jack London" (1943), starring her future husband, Michael O'Shea. "Pansy the Horse" won a spot on Broadway in the 1941 Eddie Cantor musical "Banjo Eyes."įilm producer Samuel Goldwyn spotted her and cast her in films. She became part of a vaudeville revue called "Pansy the Horse" in which she was "ring mistress" to two men writhing comically in a horse's outfit. Her aunt, who ran a talent school, guided her early career. "After all those years as a young girl dancing, this was the only movie where I really got to dance." "It isn't a famous movie, but I have a special feeling for it because I got to dance in it," she said. Ronald Reagan, as a professor, was her love interest. She once said her favorite of her films was "She's Working Her Way Through College" (1952), in which she played Angela "Hot Garters Gertie" Gardner, a burlesque artiste who enrolls in college. She was the faithless wife of returning war veteran Dana Andrews in "The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946) the much-abused moll of the Oedipal gangster James Cagney in "White Heat" (1949) and a half-breed in the fatalistic Joel McCrea western "Colorado Territory" (1949). In short time, she surged from obscurity - she was in a vaudeville act featuring a fake horse - to starring film roles opposite Bob Hope ("The Princess and the Pirate") and Danny Kaye ("Wonder Man," "The Kid from Brooklyn," "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" and "A Song Is Born").Ī handful of dramatic roles, in which she earned some critical approval, did little to change her career. Slightly cross-eyed, though, she had to be photographed gingerly. She was very sequined and usually, she said, "just standing around" in Technicolor pictures that showcased her flawless complexion. ![]() Looks aside, she had little chance to exploit a deeper dramatic talent. Mayo a fan letter in which he called her "tangible proof of the existence of God." The sultan of Morocco, smitten with her appearance, was said to have written Ms. 17 at a nursing home in Thousand Oaks, Calif., had a peaches-and-cream beauty that helped her thrive in Hollywood musicals and comedies of the 1940s. Actress Virginia Mayo, 84, who died of pneumonia Jan.
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