Gaby Rodgers

Gaby Rodgers, born Gabrielle Rosenberg on March 29, 1928, in Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, is a German-born American actress, theater director, and journalist. She is the daughter of Jewish art dealer Saemy Rosenberg, the niece of art historian Jakob Rosenberg, and the great-niece of philosopher Edmund Husserl. Her family fled Nazi Germany as refugees, relocating first to Amsterdam and then to London before eventually settling in the United States. During the family's time in Amsterdam, Rodgers knew the Frank family and played marbles with Anne Frank.

Rodgers built a substantial stage career, appearing on Broadway between 1955 and 1957 in three productions. She took part in the drama Mister Johnson, the comedy The Heavenly Twins, and the drama The Hidden River. Her stage work during this period earned her a Theatre World Award in 1956, and she was featured on the cover of the January 1957 issue of Cosmopolitan as the representative of what the magazine called the new face of Broadway. She continued working as a stage actress and director into the new century.

Alongside her theater work, Rodgers was active as a television actress throughout the 1950s. Her film appearances were limited to two roles: the 1953 New York independent production The Big Break and the 1955 film Kiss Me Deadly, in which she played Lily Carver, the role for which she remains most widely recognized.

In her personal life, Rodgers was married for a number of years to lyricist Jerry Leiber, one half of the songwriting duo Leiber and Stoller, known for writing songs including Hound Dog and Jailhouse Rock. Rodgers has frequently been cited as a co-author of the song Jackson alongside Billy Edd Wheeler, but that credit is inaccurate. Leiber wrote the song with Wheeler and used his then-wife's name as a pseudonym.