Anne Jeffreys

Anne Jeffreys, born Annie Jeffreys Carmichael on January 26, 1923, in Goldsboro, North Carolina, was an American actress and singer whose career spanned film, television, and the Broadway stage. She died at her home in Los Angeles on September 27, 2017, at the age of 94.

Jeffreys began her artistic training in voice, developing into an accomplished soprano. She earned a scholarship to the New York Municipal Opera Company and performed lead roles at Carnegie Hall in productions including La bohème, Traviata, and Pagliacci. As a teenager she also signed with the John Robert Powers agency as a junior model. Her path toward an operatic career shifted when she was cast in a staged musical revue, Fun for the Money, which led directly to her first film role in the 1942 musical I Married an Angel, starring Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald. During the 1940s she held contracts with both RKO and Republic Studios, appearing in several Dick Tracy films as Tess Trueheart, the 1944 Frank Sinatra musical Step Lively, the 1945 horror comedy Zombies on Broadway with Wally Brown and Alan Carney, the 1945 crime film Dillinger in which she played bank robber John Dillinger's moll, and the 1947 film Riffraff opposite Pat O'Brien. She also appeared in a number of western films during this period.

When her Hollywood career slowed, Jeffreys turned her focus to the stage. Her Broadway debut came in 1947 with the opera Street Scene. She subsequently appeared on Broadway in My Romance in 1948, and replaced Patricia Morison in the Cole Porter musical Kiss Me, Kate, which she performed on Broadway from 1950 to 1951 and on national tour from 1949 to 1950. In 1952 she starred in the musical Three Wishes for Jamie. Her Broadway work continued into the 1960s, with appearances in Destry Rides Again, Kismet, and Camelot, among other productions.

In 1953, Jeffreys and her husband, actor Robert Sterling, whom she had married in 1951, starred together in the CBS sitcom Topper, in which she played a ghost and was billed in voiceover as "the ghostess with the mostest." The series ran until 1955. In 1955 she also appeared in two television musicals produced by Max Liebman: on April 9 she starred in the title role of the Widow in The Merry Widow, and on November 26 she appeared with Sterling in Dearest Enemy, set during the American Revolution. On December 18, 1957, the couple appeared together in the Wagon Train episode "The Julie Gage Story," broadcast during the series' first season on NBC. In January 1958 they co-starred in the series Love That Jill, which ran for 13 episodes over three months.

Jeffreys was nominated for a Golden Globe for her work in The Delphi Bureau in 1972. From 1984 to 1985 she starred in the Aaron Spelling series Finder of Lost Loves. In 1979 she guest starred as Siress Blassie in the Battlestar Galactica episode "The Man with Nine Lives," playing a love interest of a character portrayed by Fred Astaire; she was the last person to dance with Astaire onscreen. She also guest starred as Prime Minister Dyne in the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century episode "Planet of the Amazon Women." Her later television work included recurring appearances on Love, American Style, L.A. Law, Murder, She Wrote, Baywatch, and the nighttime soap Falcon Crest, where she played Amanda Croft. From 1984 to 2004 she held the recurring role of wealthy socialite Amanda Barrington on the daytime soap opera General Hospital and its spinoff Port Charles.

Jeffreys was married twice. Her first marriage, to Joseph Serena in 1945, was annulled in 1949. Her marriage to Robert Sterling in 1951 produced three sons: Jeffrey, Dana, and Tyler. Sterling died on May 30, 2006, at age 88. In July 1956, Jeffreys' mother, Kate Jeffreys Carmichael, age 67, was killed in the driveway of her daughter's home when the emergency brake of her automobile slipped and the car rolled down the sloping driveway, dragging her 26 feet.

Jeffreys received a star in the Television category on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1501 Vine Street, dedicated on February 8, 1960. In 1997 she received a Golden Boot Award recognizing her contributions to the western genre in film and television, and in 1998 she received the Living Legacy Award from the Women's International Center.