Vanessa Brown

Vanessa Brown, born Smylla Brind on March 24, 1928, in Vienna, Austria, was an actress whose career spanned radio, film, theater, and television. She died on May 21, 1999. Her parents, Nah Brind, a language teacher, and Anna Brind, a psychologist, were Jewish, and the family fled Vienna in 1937 to escape Nazi persecution, first settling in Paris before eventually making their way to the United States.

Brown's stage career began when she auditioned for playwright Lillian Hellman, who was casting Watch on the Rhine. Her fluency in multiple languages made an impression on Hellman, and Brown was taken on as understudy to Ann Blyth, ultimately performing the role of Babette both in the Broadway production and on the touring version. She appeared on Broadway between 1941 and 1952, with her most prominent stage credit being the origination of the role of "The Girl" in The Seven Year Itch — the character later portrayed by Marilyn Monroe in the 1955 film adaptation. During her high school years, Brown also wrote and directed school plays, and she went on to graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1949 with a major in English, having served as a movie critic and feature writer for the campus newspaper, the Daily Bruin.

Her film career began at RKO Radio Pictures, which relocated her family to Los Angeles. She made her screen debut in 1944 under her birth name, Tessa Brind, in Youth Runs Wild, after which the studio renamed her Vanessa Brown and cast her in a succession of ingenue roles. Her subsequent film appearances included The Late George Apley and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, both in 1947, in the latter of which she played Mrs. Muir's grown daughter Anna. In 1949 she appeared in Big Jack, which was Wallace Beery's final film, as well as The Heiress. She became the eighth actress to play Jane in the Tarzan series, appearing opposite Lex Barker in Tarzan and the Slave Girl in 1950, and followed that with a role in Vincente Minnelli's The Bad and the Beautiful in 1952. Her final film appearance came in 1976, playing the sister of Millie Perkins's character in the horror film The Witch Who Came from the Sea.

Brown's work in radio was extensive and began early. An IQ of 165 earned her a position as one of the young panelists on the radio series Quiz Kids, where she specialized in literature and language, a tenure that lasted two years. She was also heard on Lux Radio Theatre, Skippy Hollywood Theatre, NBC University Theatre, and Theatre Guild on the Air. In her later years she hosted an interview program on the Voice of America.

Her television work was equally varied. In the 1950s she was a regular panelist on the CBS program I'll Buy That and performed in live television dramas including Robert Montgomery Presents and The Philco Television Playhouse. She appeared on Pantomime Quiz and Leave It to the Girls, and in 1958 she played the title role in the Wagon Train episode "The Sally Potter Story," in which her love interest was portrayed by a young Martin Milner. In 1959 she guest-starred on Perry Mason as Donna Kress in "The Case of Paul Drake's Dilemma." Her television appearances continued in later decades with roles on The Wonder Years and Murder, She Wrote.

Beyond performing, Brown pursued writing and the visual arts. She authored a stage work titled Europa and the Bull, drawn from the legend of Europa. As a painter, she signed her canvases with her birth name, Smylla, and a Beverly Hills gallery mounted a one-woman exhibition of her oil paintings in 1958. In 1952, composer Bernie Wayne wrote the song "Vanessa" in her honor. Brown also served as a junior member of the National Board of Review and was one of the narrators, alongside Vincent Price and Robert Ryan, of the United World Federalists documentary Eight Steps to Peace in 1957.

In her personal life, Brown was first married to plastic surgeon Dr. Robert Alan Franklyn from 1950 to 1957. In 1959 she married television director Mark Sandrich Jr., son of director Mark Sandrich; they had two children, David Michael and Cathy Lisa. Brown was active in Democratic Party politics, serving as a delegate to the party's national convention in 1956 and participating in a 1962 committee that promoted a write-in campaign for Adlai Stevenson as governor of California. She has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for motion pictures at 1621 Vine Street and one for television at 6528 Hollywood Boulevard. Upon her death, Brown was cremated and her ashes were returned to her son David.