Ann Robinson

Personal life

Robinson was born at the Hollywood Hospital in Hollywood, California. She attended Hollywood High School from 1946 to 1949 (she flunked 11 math and thus graduated in 1949). Her father was employed by the Bank of Hollywood, at the corner of Hollywood and Vine. He taught her how to ride horses, beginning when she was only three. Robinson hence became an accomplished rider, which led to her first professional work in Hollywood as a stunt rider in film Frenchie with Shelley Winters.

Her career as a leading woman was effectively ended in 1957, when she eloped to Mexico to marry a matador, Jaime Bravo, with whom she had two sons; Jaime A. Bravo, who is a director for ABC Sports and ESPN, and Estefan A. Bravo, who played the Axl Rose-like character in White Trash Wins Lotto, a musical by Andy Prieboy. Since that marriage, Robinson has played minor roles, mainly in science fiction films. The couple divorced in 1967. On February 2, 1970, Jaime Bravo was killed in an automobile accident on the way to a bullfight.

In 1987, Robinson married real estate broker and business manager Joseph Valdez, residing in the Echo Park section of Los Angeles. They divorced in 2017.

She makes guest appearances at autograph shows and science-fiction conventions.

Robinson has two grandchildren from her son Jaime and daughter-in-law Barbara Colegrove Bravo. Victoria Ann Bravo and Samuel Anastasio Bravo, both born in 2001.

Acting career

As a stunt horse rider, Robinson doubled for Shelley Winters in Frenchie (1950), starring and riding in several westerns during her career such as The Cimarron Kid (1951) with Audie Murphy, Gun Brothers (1956), and Gun Duel in Durango (1957).

Paramount Pictures signed her as an actress in the early 1950s. Her first leading role was as "Sylvia Van Buren" in The War of the Worlds (1953) co-starring with Gene Barry, a role she quasi-reprised in two later films, first as Dr. Van Buren in Midnight Movie Massacre (1988) and then as Dr. Sylvia Van Buren in The Naked Monster (2005). She also reprised the role in three episodes of the television series War of the Worlds (1988).

Robinson worked on several other films, including Imitation of Life (1959), and the Doris Day thriller Julie (1956). She also had a starring role opposite Jack Webb and Ben Alexander in Dragnet (1954), a feature film version of the hit television series.

From 1955 to 1959, Robinson was cast in ten episodes of the NBC children's western television series Fury as Helen Watkins, the teacher of series character Joey Clark Newton (Bobby Diamond) and romantic interest of his adopted father, Jim Newton (Peter Graves).

Her other television roles were on Adam-12, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Bachelor Father, Ben Casey, Biff Baker, U.S.A., The Bob Cummings Show, The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, Days of Our Lives, Four Star Playhouse, General Hospital, Gilligan's Island, It's a Great Life, The Millionaire, My Little Margie, Perry Mason, Peter Gunn, Police Woman, Rawhide, Rocky Jones Space Ranger, Rory Calhoun's The Texan, Waterfront, and The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp.

Robinson was featured in several commercials for Home Savings of America, Toni home perms, and Chesterfield Cigarettes. She performed a number of film voice-overs also, in English and Spanish. She did the leading actress' voice in To Begin Again, which won the 1984 Oscar for best foreign film. She also did loops for the Bruce Lee series The Dead Are Alive, Tough Guys, and Survive.

In 1985, she appeared in a documentary about George Pal titled The Fantasy Film Worlds of George Pal (produced and directed by Arnold Leibovit).

In the 2005 Steven Spielberg film, War of the Worlds, she played a cameo role as Tom Cruise's character's mother-in-law, the grandmother of Dakota Fanning's character, alongside her long-ago co-star Gene Barry. Upon completing this role, she retired from acting altogether.