Marian Shockley

Marian Shockley, also known as Marian Shockley Collyer, was an American actress born on October 10, 1908, in Kansas City, Missouri, who worked across stage, film, radio, and television until her retirement in 1955. She died on December 14, 1981, at the age of 73.

Shockley originally attended the University of Missouri with the intention of pursuing a career in teaching history. Her involvement with the Theatre Guild and work in stock theater redirected her toward acting. A stint with a stock company in Denver led her to New York, where she served as an understudy for Ina Claire. Her Broadway appearances spanned 1935 to 1938 and included Dear Old Darling, Abie's Irish Rose, and Censored.

Her film career was concentrated in the early 1930s, during which she appeared in nineteen pictures between 1930 and 1934. Among these were the 1931 western Near the Trail's End, in which she starred opposite Bob Steele, and Heroes of the Flames, also from 1931, in which she appeared alongside Tim McCoy. In 1932, she was named a WAMPAS Baby Star, a distinction she shared that year with Ginger Rogers and Gloria Stuart. Following that productive period, Shockley received only one film role between 1934 and 1943, a small part in Stage Door Canteen. She subsequently took on a limited number of television roles.

On radio, Shockley became the first performer to portray Nikki Porter, the secretary to the fictional detective Ellery Queen, on The Adventures of Ellery Queen, holding the role from 1939 to 1944. She also played Carol Brent on the radio serial Road of Life.

Shockley was married three times. Her first marriage, to Gordon Barry Thomson, lasted from 1934 to 1938. In 1939, she married George Zachary, who served as producer-director of The Adventures of Ellery Queen; that marriage ended around 1945. She subsequently married actor and game show host Bud Collyer in 1946, and remained married to him until his death in 1969. Collyer had three children from a prior marriage. Through her marriage to Bud Collyer, Shockley became the sister-in-law of actor Stuart Erwin and actress June Collyer.