Verna Hillie

Verna Dolores Hillie (May 5, 1914 – October 3, 1997) was an American actress born in Hancock, Michigan, whose career spanned film, radio, and Broadway through the 1930s and into the early 1940s.

Hillie's path into acting began during her teenage years in Detroit, Michigan, where she secured a part in a radio drama broadcast on station WWJ. Her entry into film came through an unlikely route: her mother, without Hillie's consent, submitted her photograph to a national competition for the role of "Lota the Panther Woman" in Paramount Pictures' 1932 production Island of Lost Souls. Though initially reluctant when Paramount called her for a tryout, she ultimately embraced the opportunity. She did not win the role — it went to Kathleen Burke — but Paramount offered her a contract regardless, placing her first in a small uncredited part in Madame Butterfly (1932). Her profile rose with a supporting role in Under the Tonto Rim (1933), and she accumulated a range of credits at Paramount that year, including From Hell to Heaven, Man of the Forest, and uncredited appearances in Duck Soup and other productions.

A diagnosis of Bell's palsy led Paramount to drop her contract, though Hillie recovered and continued working across multiple studios. In 1934 she co-starred with Ken Maynard in Mystery Mountain, a Western serial produced by Mascot Pictures, and then appeared opposite John Wayne in both The Star Packer and The Trail Beyond for Monogram Pictures. At Universal Studios she took on smaller roles, including a part in I've Been Around (1935), though her time at that studio ended after she rejected romantic advances from production executive Carl Laemmle, Jr. Her 1935 film work also included Princess O'Hara, Rescue Squad, and Mister Dynamite. That same year, Hillie appeared on Broadway in Night of January 16th. Her final screen credit was an uncredited role in The Reluctant Dragon (1941).

In her personal life, Hillie married radio emcee Frank Gill Jr. in 1933. The couple had two children, Kelly and Pamela Lincoln, before divorcing in 1952. After stepping away from acting in the early 1940s to raise her children, she made a brief return to performing in two early 1950s episodes of The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, playing the character Clara Bagley. She married NBC executive Richard Linkroun in 1952; that marriage ended after eleven years. Following her divorce from Linkroun, Hillie worked in health care administration and later served as the United States representative for British author Barbara Cartland. She died on October 3, 1997, in Fairfield, Connecticut, from a stroke.