Phyllis Avery

Phyllis Avery (November 14, 1922 – May 19, 2011) was an American actress born in New York City to screenwriter Stephen Morehouse Avery and his wife, Evelyn Martine Avery. She spent her formative years in France and Los Angeles before returning to New York to complete her training at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Avery made her Broadway debut in May 1937, playing Goldie in the musical Orchids Preferred, launching a stage career that would span nearly a decade. She returned to Broadway in 1940 and 1941 in the successful comedy Charley's Aunt, taking on the role of Amy Spettigue, one of the young naive girls, opposite José Ferrer. Her Broadway work continued with productions including Ask My Friend Sandy, the drama Letters to Lucerne, the comedy Little Darling, and Brighten the Corner. From November 1943 to May 1944, she appeared in over 200 performances of Winged Victory, Moss Hart's musical play produced by the US Army Air Forces, in which she played Dorothy Ross. It was during this production that she met actor and filmmaker Don Taylor, whom she would later marry.

Avery's personal life during these years included a brief first marriage to James Howell Van Campen in 1942, which ended in divorce in 1944. That same year she married Taylor; the two divorced in 1955, having had two daughters together.

Her film career began in 1951 with a role in the comedy Queen for a Day, and she followed that with a part in the 1952 Twentieth Century-Fox drama Ruby Gentry, playing Tracy McAuliffe, the wife of the character portrayed by Charlton Heston. In 1956 she appeared in The Best Things in Life Are Free, a film biography of three composers featuring Gordon MacRae, Ernest Borgnine, and Dan Dailey, in which she portrayed Margaret Henderson, wife of composer Ray Henderson.

Television became the primary focus of Avery's professional life from the 1950s onward, with appearances in more than 40 series across a range of formats. From 1953 to 1955 she played Peggy McNutley, Ray Milland's wife, in the sitcom Meet Mr. McNutley. Between 1960 and 1962 she took on the recurring role of Anne Shelby in the soap opera The Clear Horizon, portraying the wife of a US astronaut stationed at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Her guest and episode appearances spanned series including Richard Diamond, Private Detective, Perry Mason, The Rifleman, Rawhide, Peter Gunn, Have Gun Will Travel, The Virginian, Dr. Kildare, Daniel Boone, All in the Family, Maude, Charlie's Angels, and Baretta, among others. She stepped back from acting in the late 1970s, though she returned for sporadic roles in the 1990s, including the comedy film Made in America, the series Coach, and the 1999 film The Secret Life of Girls.

Alongside her entertainment career, Avery worked as a real estate broker in and around Los Angeles from the 1960s onward. She died on May 19, 2011, at her Los Angeles home of heart failure at the age of 88.