KATHLEEN CROWLEY

(26 December 1929 - 23 April 2017)

The American actress Kathleen Crowley came sixth in the Miss America pageant of 1949, representing New Jersey. Her prize money went towards her studies at the American Academy of Dramatic Art in New York. In 1951 she made her TV debut in a version of A Star Is Born with Robert Montgomery. More television followed until her first film role in The Silver Whip, a western with Dale Robertson. Then came The Farmer Takes a Wife with Robertson again and Betty Grable, and Sabre Jet with Robert Stack. She appeared with Fess Parker in Westward Ho, the Wagons! but for the most part it was back to TV apart from Target Earth, a sci-fi horror flick which set the tone for her career in exploitation movies such as Female Jungle, The Flame Barrier, Curse of the Undead, The Rebel Set, The Quiet Gun, Showdown and other minor Westerns. Guest shots in TV also kept her busy. After the films of Downhill Racer and The Lawyer in 1970, she retired to look after her family and to become a bridge tender for the Green Bank Road Bridge in her hometown in New Jersey.

MICHAEL DARVELL