Virginia Mayo, once described in a fan letter from the sultan of Morocco as ”tangible proof of the existence of God”, died on Monday at the age of 84.
She began opposite a pantomime horse in vaudeville and became one of the biggest stars of the 40s and 50s Hollywood musical. Taken up by Sam Goldwyn, she appeared in more than 40 films with the full complement of the era’s male stars — Danny Kaye, Bob Hope, James Cagney, Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster and Gregory Peck.
Her first starring role was opposite Hope in the adventure comedy The Princess and the Pirate.
In 1946 Goldwyn cast her in The Best Years of Our Lives as an army wife coping with the return of her husband from the war.
In White Heat, directed by Raoul Walsh in 1949, she played the unscrupulous wife of gangster James Cagney. She later said of Cagney: ”His acting was so real that I was really scared half the time we were on the set.”
Her other notable role was in the 1947 film The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, one of five films she made with Danny Kaye before being signed by Warner Brothers, who pronounced her ”potentially as valuable as an acre of land in downtown Los Angeles – and at least several times more desirable”. – Guardian Unlimited Â