Rhonda Fleming

Rhonda Fleming, born Marilyn Louis on August 10, 1923, in Hollywood, California, was an American actress, singer, and Broadway performer who died on October 14, 2020. Her father, Harold Cheverton Louis, worked as an insurance salesman, while her mother, Effie Graham, was a stage actress who had performed opposite Al Jolson in the musical Dancing Around at New York's Winter Garden Theatre between 1914 and 1915. Fleming's maternal grandfather, John C. Graham, was an actor, theater owner, and newspaper editor in Utah. She was named after Marilyn Miller, a friend of her mother's.

Fleming began her film career while still a student at Beverly Hills High School, from which she graduated in 1941. Hollywood agent Henry Willson discovered her when she was sixteen or seventeen years old, signing her to a seven-year contract without a screen test and changing her name from Marilyn Louis to Rhonda Fleming. Willson subsequently went to work for producer David O. Selznick, who also signed Fleming to a contract. Her earliest screen appearances were small parts in In Old Oklahoma (1943), Since You Went Away (1944), and When Strangers Marry (1944). Her first substantial role came in Alfred Hitchcock's thriller Spellbound (1945), produced by Selznick, followed by Robert Siodmak's The Spiral Staircase (1946). Selznick also lent her out for supporting roles in the Randolph Scott Western Abilene Town (1946) and the film noir Out of the Past (1947), featuring Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas. Her first leading role came in Adventure Island (1947), a Paramount production filmed in Cinecolor.

Fleming's association with Technicolor proved defining for her public image. Her audition for A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1949) showcased her singing ability, as she dueted with Bing Crosby on "Once and For Always" and performed the solo "When Is Sometime." The two recorded the songs for a three-disc, 78-rpm Decca album conducted by Victor Young. The film was her first in Technicolor, and her fair complexion and red hair photographed so effectively in the format that she earned the nickname "Queen of Technicolor." She went on to appear in more than forty films, predominantly during the 1940s and 1950s. Her starring role opposite Bob Hope in The Great Lover (1949) established her as a bankable film star.

After ending her eight-year association with Selznick in 1950, Fleming signed a three-picture deal with Paramount. She appeared as Ronald Reagan's leading lady in The Last Outpost (1951) and Hong Kong (1951), and as John Payne's leading lady in Crosswinds (1951). Her subsequent credits included The Golden Hawk (1952) with Sterling Hayden, a portrayal of Cleopatra in Serpent of the Nile (1953), the Western Pony Express (1953) with Charlton Heston, and three films released in 3D: Inferno (1953) with Robert Ryan, Those Redheads From Seattle (1953) with Gene Barry, and Jivaro (1954) with Fernando Lamas. She traveled to Italy to portray Semiramis in Queen of Babylon (1954) and appeared at Universal in Yankee Pasha (1954) with Jeff Chandler. Her 1955 Western Tennessee's Partner, filmed partly at the Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, California, left a lasting geographic mark: a sandstone formation behind which her character takes cover during an action sequence became known as the Rhonda Fleming Rock, now part of a preserved public parkland called Garden of the Gods. Fleming played the female lead in John Sturges's Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), alongside Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas, and later considered her role in Home Before Dark (1958), supporting Jean Simmons, to be among her personal favorites.

Beyond film, Fleming maintained an active presence in live performance and television. In May 1957, she launched a nightclub act at the Tropicana in Las Vegas and subsequently performed a one-woman concert at the Hollywood Bowl. She was also a member of a gospel singing quartet alongside Jane Russell, Connie Haines, and Beryl Davis. In 1958, she recorded her only LP, titled Rhonda, released by Columbia Records. On September 30, 1951, she sang live on NBC's Colgate Comedy Hour, broadcast from the El Capitan Theater in Hollywood. Throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and into the 1970s, she made guest appearances on numerous television programs, including The Red Skelton Show, Wagon Train, Burke's Law, The Virginian, McMillan and Wife, Police Woman, Kung Fu, Ellery Queen, and The Love Boat.

Fleming's stage ambitions, which she described as being close to her heart, eventually led her to Broadway. In 1973, she appeared on Broadway in The Old Women, bringing to the stage the performance experience she had cultivated across decades of film, television, and live nightclub work. By 1960, Fleming had described herself as semi-retired, having built financial security through real-estate investments, though she continued to perform in Las Vegas and Palm Springs that same year.