Virginia Mayo (November 30 1920 – January 17 2005) was an American film actress.
Born Virginia Clara Jones in St. Louis, Missouri. Tutored by a series of dancing instructors engaged by her aunt, she appeared in the St. Louis Municipal Opera chorus and then appeared with six other girls at an act at the Jefferson Hotel. There she was recruited by vaudeville performer Andy Mayo to appear in his act (as ringmaster for two men in a horse suit), taking his surname as as her stage name. She appeared in vaudeville for three years in the act, appearing with Eddie Cantor on Broadway in 1941's Banjo Eyes.
Mayo continued her career as a dancer, then signed a contract with Samuel Goldwyn and appeared in several of Goldwyn's movies. With Danny Kaye she made comedies including Wonder Man (1945), The Kid from Brooklyn (1946) and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947).
In 1949's White Heat she took on the role of "Verna Jarrett," opposite James Cagney. Mayo later claimed in interviews that she...
Created by dipity on Feb 7, 2008
Last updated: 03/04/10 at 03:12 AM
Virginia Mayo died in Los Angeles, Los Angeles County
Painting the Clouds with Sunshine was the title of a musical movie released in 1951, directed by David Butler and starring Dennis Morgan and Virginia Mayo.It was based on an earlier musical, Gold Diggers of 1933....,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043896
Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N. (released in the U.S. without the "R.N.") is a 1951 naval adventure film. It was directed by Raoul Walsh and stars Gregory Peck, Virginia Mayo, and Robert Beatty.It was based upon three of the Horatio Hornblower novels of C. S. Forester, The Happy Return (Beat to Quarters in the United States), A Ship of the Line, and Flying Colours. Forester shared writing credits; the film was faithful to his novels and features an occasionally introspective tone unusual for an old-fashioned swashbuckler. During the Napoleonic Wars, HMS Lydia, a frigate under the command of British Royal Navy Captain Horatio Hornblower (Gregory Peck), sails from England, around the Straits of Magellan, to the Pacific coast of Central America. Hornblower's mission is to provide arms and support to the megalomaniac calling himself "El Supremo" or "The Almighty" (Alec Mango) in his rebellion against Spain, an ally of Britain's enemy France.Upon his arrival, the Englishman is told that a...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043379
The Flame and the Arrow is a 1950 adventure film made by Warner Bros.. It was directed by Jacques Tourneur and produced by Harold Hecht and Frank Ross from a screenplay by Waldo Salt. The music score was by Max Steiner and the cinematography by Ernest Haller. The film was shot in Technicolor.
The film stars Burt Lancaster, Virginia Mayo and Nick Cravat with Robert Douglas and Aline MacMahon.
Set in the time of Frederick Barbarossa, in the area of Italy known as Lombardy Lancaster plays Dardo Bartoli, a young, Robin Hood-type archer who eventually helps a rebellion in Italy against German tyrants led by Count Ulrich, 'The Hawk', who stole his wife years earlier and later steals his son as well. The majority of the film is actually very light hearted, with plenty of action, swashbuckling and romance in the form of Mayo as Anne de Hesse.
The story centres on efforts to free Dardo's son Rudi who has been taken by the Count (known as the Hawk) to live in the castle.
Dardo (Burt Lancaster)...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042464
Red Light is a 1949 crime film, considered film noir, shot on location in California. This unusual revenge film has an overtly religious theme.
oatz plots murderous revenge after he is fired from Johnny Torno's freight company. He gets it by killing Johnny's brother Jess, a chaplain who has just returned from the war. When Johnny arrives at his brother hotel room, he is told by Jess that a clue to the killer's identity can be found inside the rooms' Bible. Johnny takes off with his girlfriend in an attempt to catch the killer, who has also killed the man left in charge of Johnny's company while he looks for revenge.
...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041790
White Heat is a 1949 crime film starring James Cagney, Edmond O'Brien, Virginia Mayo, Margaret Wycherly, and Steve Cochran. Directed by Raoul Walsh, it is considered one of the great gangster films and a classic film noir.
Cody Jarrett (Cagney) is a ruthless, deranged criminal responsible for two murder-filled robberies. He is overly attached to his equally crooked and determined mother, 'Ma' Jarrett (Wycherly). When he has one of his splitting headaches, she gives him a drink, with the toast "Top of the world." With the police closing in, he confesses to a lesser crime and is sentenced to one to three years of jail time.
'Big Ed' Somers (Cochran), Cody's ambitious right-hand man, has designs on both Cody's gang and his treacherous wife Verna (Mayo), so he hires a con, Roy Parker (Paul Guilfoyle), to kill him. In the prison workplace, Parker arranges to drop a heavy piece of machinery on Jarrett, but cellmate Vic Pardo (O'Brien) pushes him out of the way and saves his life. When Ma...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042041
Colorado Territory is a 1949 film western remake of the 1941 film noir High Sierra. Raoul Walsh, who directed High Sierra also directed this film. It was the first film premiered at a drive-in theater.
Joel McCrea plays veteran outlaw Wes McQueen (Humphrey Bogart in the original) who hopes to pull off one last, big railroad heist. McQueen doesn't care for his new partners - except perhaps Colorado Carson (Virginia Mayo) a dance-hall girl who may be the only person who genuinely cares about his well-being. McQueen, meanwhile, also has eyes for Julie Ann who is newly arrived from the east and setting up home with her father.
With a $10,000 reward on his head, McQueen making a futile bid for escape to the mountains, with tragic consequences.
This story was remade again in 1955 as I Died a Thousand Times with Jack Palance and Shelley Winters.
...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041253
Flaxy Martin is a 1949 in film black-and-white film directed by Richard L. Bare. The crime thriller, considered film noir, stars Virginia Mayo, Zachary Scott (in a rare film lead role) and Dorothy Malone.
A mob lawyer (Scott) tries to quit the organization and become respectable. His girlfriend, unscrupulous mob-connected showgirl Flaxy Martin (Mayo), is accused of murdering a woman. Not realizing her involvement in the killing, the lawyer tells police that he did the killing. His plan was to defend himself and get him and his girl off. Unfortunately, she sets him up during the trial and the lawyer is put away for the killing. On his way to prison to serve 20 years, he escapes and with tips and clues he begins to figure out who really did the killing. With the assistance of a young woman, he also begins to realize that Flaxy was not the woman she pretended to be.
TV Guide's review notes that Zachary Scott usually plays the bad guy in films like this. "Scott takes a break from his...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041374
The Best Years of Our Lives is an American 1946 drama film about three servicemen trying to piece their lives back together after coming back home from World War II.
Samuel Goldwyn was motivated to produce the film after his wife Frances read an August 7, 1944 article in Time magazine which told about the homecoming story of war veterans and their difficulty. Goldwyn hired MacKinlay Kantor to write the story, which was first published as a book, Glory for Me. Robert Sherwood then wrote the screenplay. It was directed by William Wyler, with cinematography by Gregg Toland.
The ensemble cast includes Fredric March, Myrna Loy, Dana Andrews, Teresa Wright, Virginia Mayo, and Hoagy Carmichael. It also features Harold Russell, an actor who had lost both his hands in a training accident.
The film received seven Academy Awards.
After World War II, demobilized servicemen Fred Derry (Dana Andrews), Homer Parrish (Harold Russell), and Al Stephenson (Frederic March) meet while hitching a ride...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036868
The Kid from Brooklyn is 1946 comedy film starring Danny Kaye and co-starring Virginia Mayo, Vera-Ellen, Steve Cochran, and Eve Arden, about a milkman who becomes world boxing champion.
Directed by Norman Z. McLeod and produced by Samuel Goldwyn, it is a remake of the 1936 Harold Lloyd film The Milky Way.Shy milkman Burleigh Sullivan accidentally knocks out drunken Speed McFarlane, a champion boxer who was flirting with Burleigh's sister. The newspapers get hold of the story and photographers even catch Burleigh knock out Speed again. Speed's crooked manager decides to turn Burleigh into a fighter. Burleigh doesn't realize that all of his opponents have been asked to take a dive. Thinking he really is a great fighter, Burleigh develops a swelled head which puts a crimp in his relationship with pretty nightclub singer Polly Pringle. He may finally get his comeuppance when he challenges Speed for the title.
...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038668
Wonder Man is a 1945 movie starring Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo. It is based on a short story by Arthur Sheekman, adapted for the screen by a staff of writers led by Jack Jevne and Eddie Moran, produced by Samuel Goldwyn, and directed by H. Bruce Humberstone.
Danny Kaye plays a double role as a pair of estranged "super-identical twins", with very similar looks, but very different personalities. Buster Dingle, who goes by the stage name "Buzzy Bellow" is a loud and goofy performer at a classy nightclub (the Pelican Club), while Edwin Dingle is a studious, quiet bookworm writing a history book. The two brothers have not seen each other for years.
Buster becomes the witness to a murder committed by mob boss "Ten Grand" Jackson (Steve Cochran), and is promptly murdered himself. He comes back as a ghost, calling on his long-lost brother for help to bring the killer to justice. As a result, the shy Edwin must take his brother's place until after his testimony is given.
In the meantime, he...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038260
Virginia Mayo was born in St. Louis, Missouri, Missouri
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