Olive Deering

Olive Deering (born Olive Corn; October 11, 1918 – March 22, 1986) was an American actress whose career spanned stage, film, television, and radio. A native of New York City, she performed on Broadway across four decades, from 1936 to 1977. She was a life member of The Actors Studio, as was her elder brother, the actor Alfred Ryder.

Born to Zelda "Sadie" (née Baruchin) and Max Corn, a dentist, Deering enrolled at the Professional Children's School at age eleven. Her earliest stage work came in 1933 with a walk-on role in Girls in Uniform. She went on to appear in Moss Hart's Winged Victory, a production of Richard II starring Maurice Evans, and a production of Counsellor-at-Law starring Paul Muni. In 1940, she and her brother Ryder co-starred on Broadway in Medicine Show. Her Broadway credits over the following decades included Skydrift, The Front Page, The Advocate, Marathon '33, and Vieux Carré. She also appeared in No for an Answer, Ceremony of Innocence, The Young Elizabeth, They Walk Alone, and Garden District. Her performance in the Los Angeles production of Tennessee Williams's Suddenly Last Summer earned her notable recognition. In 1980, Deering and Ryder reunited onstage in a revival of Williams's The Two-Character Play at the studio theater of The Harold Clurman Theater.

Her film career included a significant association with director Cecil B. DeMille, who cast her as Miriam, the Danite girl who loves Samson, in his 1948 production Samson and Delilah. DeMille cast her again in The Ten Commandments (1956), this time as Miriam, the sister of Moses. Additional film appearances included Caged and Shock Treatment.

Deering was equally active in television and radio. She appeared in more than 200 television programs, among them an episode of Somerset Maugham TV Theatre on November 19, 1950, and an episode of Suspense on June 12, 1951. She played the role of Desdemona in a Philco Summer Playhouse production of Othello and portrayed the murderess Rebecca Gentrie in the 1958 Perry Mason episode "The Case of the Empty Tin." On June 6, 1962, she starred in "Journey to Oblivion" on Armstrong Circle Theatre, and on December 30, 1963, she appeared in "The Zanti Misfits," an episode of the science fiction series The Outer Limits. One of her final television appearances was in "One of the Family," an episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour that aired on February 8, 1965. Her radio work included appearances on Lone Journey, True Story, and Against the Storm.

In her personal life, Deering married film director Leo Penn on February 19, 1947, in Los Angeles, California. Following their divorce, she married Alan James in 1959; he died in 1969. Deering had no children. She died of cancer on March 22, 1986, at the age of 67, and was interred at Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York. She was survived by her brother, Alfred Ryder.