Cause of death cancer Role Film actress Name Cathy Downs | Years active 1945–1965 Occupation Actress | |
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Died December 8, 1976, Los Angeles, California, United States Spouse Robert Brunson (m. 1956–1963), Joe Kirkwood, Jr. (m. 1949–1955) Movies My Darling Clementine, Missile to the Moon, The Amazing Colossal, The Dark Corner, For You I Die Similar People Linda Darnell, Joe Kirkwood - Jr, Richard E Cunha, Tim Holt, Ward Bond | ||
For you i die 1947 cathy downs
Cathy Downs (March 3, 1924 – December 8, 1976) was an American film actress.
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CATHY DOWNS TRIBUTE
Biography
Downs was born in Port Jefferson, New York. She was the daughter of James Nelson Downs and Edna Elizabeth Newman. A former Vogue cover model, she was brought to Hollywood in 1944 by a 20th Century-Fox talent scout.
Downs began her film career with a small roles in State Fair (1945) and The Dolly Sisters (1945). In 1946 she played the title role in My Darling Clementine and Clifton Webb's unfaithful wife in The Dark Corner. Following the success of My Darling Clementine, Downs was cast in a prison drama For You I Die (1947), an Abbott and Costello comedy The Noose Hangs High, and several western films.
By the beginning of the 1950s she was appearing in lower-budget films, including some science fiction stories, with one of these, Missile to the Moon, marking her last big-screen appearance, in 1958.
She appeared in a television episode of The Lone Ranger in 1952. Downs worked sporadically on TV during the 1960s, with her final appearance in 1965 on Perry Mason as murder victim and title character Millicent Barton in "The Case of the Hasty Honeymooner." She was unemployed the remaining 11 years of her life before she died in Los Angeles.
Downs has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contribution to television, at 6646 Hollywood Boulevard.
Personal life
She was married first to Joe Kirkwood, Jr. (1952–1955; divorced), who played the character Joe Palooka in films and on TV. They had long been out of touch, when, in 1976, Kirkwood heard that Downs was in dire financial straits.
Kirkwood was setting up a trust fund for her when he learned she had died of cancer at the age of 52. She is interred at Woodlawn Cemetery, Santa Monica.