http://entertainment.msn.com/movies/article.aspx?news=178888

1940s Film Star Virginia Mayo Dies at 84
Jan 18, 5:38 AM EST

She was one of the most beautiful women of her time,
yet it was perhaps Virginia Mayo's beauty that kept
her talents from being fully appreciated by film
critics and audiences, say some who knew the actress
well.

Mayo died Monday at a nursing home in suburban
Thousand Oaks following a year of declining health.
She was 84.

Rising from chorus girl to feature film star almost
overnight, Mayo went on to appear opposite many of the
most popular actors of her time, including James
Cagney, Bob Hope, Gregory Peck, George Raft, Danny
Kaye, Ronald Reagan, Rex Harrison, Burt Lancaster and
Kirk Douglas.

Although many of her films were light escapist fare,
she landed two solid dramatic roles — in 1946's "The
Best Years of Our Lives" and 1949's "White Heat" — and
made the most of both of them.

"I still think she should have won an Academy Award,
or at least a nomination, for 'The Best Years of Our
Lives,'" casting director and longtime family friend
Marvin Paige said of the film that cast Mayo as the
two-timing wife of Dana Andrews' returning World War
II soldier.

"She was a wonderful musical and comedy performer and
also a wonderful dramatic actress," Paige said Monday,
adding not as many people knew of her latter talents.

Her honey blonde hair and creamy, flawless face had
made her ideal for the Technicolor musicals, westerns
and adventures so popular in the 1940s and '50s.

She appeared in five movies in 1949 alone: "The Girl
From Jones Beach" with Reagan, "Colorado Territory"
with Peck, "Always Leave Them Laughing" with Milton
Berle, "Red Light" with Raft and "White Heat" with
Cagney.

The latter, in which she played the neglected wife of
Cagney's psychopathic killer, was one of her
favorites, said her daughter, Mary Johnston.

Another was the lighthearted 1952 musical "She's
Working Her Way Through College" with Reagan.

"People always want to hear who was her favorite
kisser and stories like that, but those aren't the
most important memories to me," said her daughter.
"The memories that mean the most to me are that it
seems like wherever you were, whoever you were, she
always made everything fun for you."

Her mother would acknowledge, however, that it was
Peck who delivered the best screen kiss, Johnston
added with a chuckle.

Raoul Walsh directed three of Mayo's best films,
"White Heat," "Colorado Territory" and "Captain
Horatio Hornblower," and the legendary director's
widow, Mary Walsh, remembered the actress warmly.

"She was beautiful in pictures, but she was even more
beautiful in person," Walsh said Monday. "I guess
maybe it was because she was so good inside."

Born Virginia Clara Jones in St. Louis on Nov. 30,
1920, Mayo had gotten her start as a child when she
was booked to appear in local plays and other events
by an aunt who ran a talent studio.

"I really wanted to be a dancer, but I ended up as an
actress, and I got to perform next to some of the
greatest actors of our time," she recalled in 2001.

After appearing at schools, churches, benefits and
with her hometown's Municipal Opera Company, Mayo
eventually linked up with vaudeville's "Pansy the
Horse."

The equine was actually two guys in a horse suit led
through comical gyrations by a pretty girl. When the
previous ring mistress quit, the act's boss, Andy
Mayo, hired young Virginia as a substitute and she
took his last name as her own.

She broke through to movies in the early 1940s, and
after a few small roles she appeared opposite Hope in
1944's "The Princess and the Pirate." That same year
she made the first of five films with Kaye: "Up in
Arms," "Wonder Man," "The Kid from Brooklyn," "The
Secret Life of Walter Mitty" and "A Song Is Born."

Other notable films included "Back Fire" with Gordon
MacRae, "The Flame and the Arrow" with Lancaster,
"Along the Great Divide" with Douglas, "South Sea
Woman" with Lancaster and Paul Newman's first film,
"The Silver Chalice."

As her roles began to diminish in the late 1950s, Mayo
began to work less and less frequently. Her last film
was 1997's "The Man Next Door."

Her first credited role in Hollywood had been a small
part in 1943's "Jack London," a biography of the
author starring Michael O'Shea, a former vaudevillian
and stage actor who appeared in mostly B films. In
1956 she recalled how they met on the movie set: "He
just sat there watching me, and then he walked right
up and kissed me." They married in 1947.

Mayo, who never remarried after O'Shea died of a heart
attack in 1973, is survived by her daughter and three
grandchildren.



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"Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans."
John Lennon


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