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Virginia Mayo
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Radiantly beautiful blonde actress Virginia Mayo was a chorus dancer when she began her film career as a bit player in 1942. She rose to face as Danny Kaye's leading lady in a series of splashy Technicolor musicals produced by Samuel Goldwyn. Though never regarded as a great actress, she was...Read More
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Virginia Mayo, who has died aged 84, was the picture of All-American blonde prettiness, despite a slight squint. She was Danny Kaye's dream girl in four Samuel Goldwyn Technicolored musicals in the 1940s, and, at Warners in the 1950s, she starred in tepid but tuneful trivia, in which she entertained in a limited but decorative way. Her dancing was unmemorable and her singing always dubbed.
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Born Virginia Jones in St. Louis, Missouri, in November 1920, lovely Virginia Mayo began dance training while still a young girl. She continued dancing after completing school, and by the time Mayo was 21 she landing film work in small roles and often as a dancer. She signed a contract with Samuel Goldwyn in 1943, and the next year Goldwyn gave Mayo her big break in the Bob Hope comedy The Princess and the Pirate (1944). Goldwyn often cast the beautiful actress in comedies, such as the Danny Kaye vehicles Wonder Man (1945), The Kid from Brooklyn (1946), and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947). Mayo married actor Michael O'Shea in 1947, and the following year she left Goldwyn for Warner Bros. At the new studio Mayo was cast in a number of film noir thrillers such as Flaxy Martin (1949) and White Heat (1949).
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Virginia Mayo, a blonde screen siren of the 1940s and '50s who worked opposite some of the top leading men of the era, died Monday at 84 at a nursing home in Thousand Oaks, Calif., the Associated Press reports. A versatile actress who was as at home in dramas, westerns, comedies, and musicals, Mayo costarred with James Cagney (in the gangster classic White Heat), Bob Hope (in The Princess and the Pirate), Dana Andrews (in the landmark drama about World War II vets, The Best Years of Our Lives), Ronald Reagan (in The Girl From Jones Beach and She's Working Her Way Through College), and Gregory Peck (ITALIC {Captain Horatio Hornblower}]).
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Virginia has appeared opposite some of the greatest leading men in cinema history. Rex Harrison in "King Richard and the Crusaders", Paul Newman in "The Silver Chalice, Robert Stack in "Great Day in the Morning", Bob Hope in "The Princess and the Pirate", Burt Lancaster in "The Flame and the Arrow", Kirk Douglas "Along the Great Divide" and of course Ronald Reagan in "The Girl from Jones Beach". The list is seemingly endless!
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Mayo, who was born Virginia Clara Jones in St. Louis, Missouri, on Nov. 30, 1920, got her start in show business as a child, booked to appear in local plays and other events by an aunt who ran a talent studio. She adopted the last name of Andy Mayo, the boss of a vaudeville act where she worked when she was young.
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Virginia Mayo