Audrey Totter | |
|---|---|
 Totter in the 1940s | |
| Born | Audrey Mary Totter (1917-12-20)December 20, 1917 Joliet, Illinois, U.S. |
| Died | December 12, 2013(2013-12-12) (aged 95) |
| Resting place | Pacific Ocean |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1935–1987 |
| Known for | The Postman Always Rings Twice Lady in the Lake The Set-Up Medical Center |
| Spouse | (his death) |
| Children | 1[1] |
Audrey Mary Totter (December 20, 1917 – December 12, 2013) was an American radio, film, and television actor andMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract player in the 1940s.
Audrey – some sources indicate "Audra" – Totter was born in 1917[2][3][4] and grew up inJoliet inWill County in northeasternIllinois. Her parents were John Totter, who was born in Slovenia with birth name Janez, and Ida Mae Totter. Her father was of Slovenian American descent and her mother was Swedish American. She had two brothers, Folger and George, and a sister, Collette.[5]
Totter graduated fromJoliet High School, where she acted in school plays.[5]
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Totter began her acting career inradio in the late 1930s inChicago, only 40 miles northeast of Joliet. She played in soap operas, includingPainted Dreams,Ma Perkins, andBright Horizon.[5] She created the role of Millie Bronson in the radio showMeet Millie, a situation comedy about a wisecracking Manhattan secretary from Brooklyn. The radio series began on CBS July 2, 1951, continuing until September 23, 1954. Totter dropped out when her film studio refused to allow her to appear as the character on television.
Following success in Chicago and New York City, Totter was signed to a seven-year film contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). She made her film debut inMain Street After Dark (1945) and established herself as a popular female lead in the 1940s. Due to Totter's limited skill as a singer, MGM usedHarriet Lee as hervoice double in the 1945 filmDangerous Partners.[6] Although she performed in various film genres, she became most widely known to movie audiences for her work infilm noir.[7] Looking back, Totter stated in August 1999, "The bad girls were so much fun to play. I wouldn't have wanted to play theColeen Gray good-girl parts."[8]
Among her successes were:
By the early 1950s, the tough-talking "dames" she was best known for portraying were no longer fashionable, and as MGM began streamlining its roster of contract players and worked towards creating more family-themed films, Totter was released from her contract. She reportedly was dissatisfied with her MGM career and agreed to appear inAny Number Can Play only after Clark Gable intervened. After leaving MGM, she worked forColumbia Pictures and20th Century Fox, but the quality of her films dropped, and by the late 1950s, her film career was in decline, though she continued to work steadily for television.
In 1954, Totter appeared in the pilot episode of the later 1957–58 detective seriesMeet McGraw (withFrank Lovejoy), and in 1955, she appeared in an episode ofScience Fiction Theatre entitled "Spider, Inc." She appeared withJoseph Cotten andWilliam Hopper in the 1957 episode "The Case of the Jealous Bomber" ofNBC'santhology seriesThe Joseph Cotten Show. In 1957, she was cast as Dr. Louise Kendall, in the episode "Strange Quarantine" of the NBCWestern seriesThe Californians.
Later in 1958, Totter playedboarding house owner Beth Purcell in another NBC Western series,Cimarron City. The episodes were supposed to rotate among starGeorge Montgomery as the mayor,John Smith asblacksmith/deputy sheriff Lane Temple, and Totter, but when the writers failed to feature her character, she left the series.
In 1960, she was in an episode ofAlfred Hitchcock Presents, "Madame Mystery". From 1962 to 1963, she starred ashomemaker Alice MacRoberts in theABCsituation comedyOur Man Higgins, withStanley Holloway,Frank Maxwell, andRicky Kelman. In 1964, she made a guest appearance onCBS'sPerry Mason as defendant Reba Burgess in the title role of "The Case of the Reckless Rockhound".
Totter had a continuing role from 1972 to 1976, playing Nurse Wilcox, the efficient head nurse, in the CBS television seriesMedical Center, withJames Daly andChad Everett. Her last acting role was as a nun, Sister Paul, in a 1987 episode ("Old Habits Die Hard") of CBS'sMurder, She Wrote, withAngela Lansbury.
Totter was married to Dr. Leo Fred,[9] assistant dean of theUCLA School of Medicine, from 1953 until his death in 1995. The couple had one child, a daughter.
Totter died on December 12, 2013, of a stroke, aged 95.[2] After a memorial service, her body was cremated and her ashes scattered in thePacific Ocean.[10]
