
Cathy O'Donnell
Acting
Biography
Cathy O'Donnell (July 6, 1923 – April 11, 1970) was an American actress, best known for her many roles in film-noir movies. While under contract with Samuel Goldwyn, O'Donnell made her debut in an uncredited role as a nightclub extra in Wonder Man (1945). Her first major role in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), playing Wilma Cameron, the high-school sweetheart of double amputatee Homer Parrish, played by real-life World War II veteran/amputee Harold Russell. She was loaned out to RKO for one of her most memorable films, They Live by Night (1949) starring with Farley Granger, widely considered a classic of the noir genre and on the Guardian's list of the top ten noir films. The film was directed by Nicholas Ray. The two actors later re-teamed for another movie, Side Street (1950). Later O'Donnell starred in The Miniver Story (also 1950), as Judy Miniver and also had a supporting role in Detective Story (1951). She appeared as Barbara Waggoman, the love interest of James Stewart's character in the western The Man from Laramie (1955). Her final film role was the title character's sister Tirzah in William Wyler's 1959 Academy Award winning Best Picture Ben-Hur (1959). In the 1960s, she appeared in TV shows, playing mostly bit parts on shows such as Perry Mason, The Rebel and Man Without a Gun. Her last screen appearance was in 1964, in an episode of Bonanza. Description above from the Wikipedia article Cathy O'Donnell, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Known For

The cases of master criminal defense attorney Perry Mason and his staff who handled the most difficult of cases in the aid of the innocent.
Perry Mason

Climax! is an American anthology series that aired on CBS from 1954 to 1958. The series was hosted by William Lundigan and later co-hosted by Mary Costa. It was one of the few CBS programs of that era to be broadcast in color. Many of the episodes were performed and broadcast live.
Climax!

Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre, sometimes simply called Zane Grey Theatre, is an American Western anthology series which ran on CBS from 1956 to 1961.
Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre

Matinee Theater is an American anthology series that aired on NBC during the Golden Age of Television, from 1955 to 1958. The series, which ran daily in the afternoon, was frequently live. It was produced by Albert McCleery, Darrell Ross, George Cahan and Frank Price with executive producer George Lowther. McCleery had previously produced the live series Cameo Theatre which introduced to television the concept of theater-in-the-round, TV plays staged with minimal sets. Jim Buckley of the Pewter Plough Playhouse recalled: When Al McCleery got back to the States, he originated a most ambitious theatrical TV series for NBC called Matinee Theater: to televise five different stage plays per week live, airing around noon in order to promote color TV to the American housewife as she labored over her ironing. Al was the producer. He hired five directors and five art directors. Richard Bennett, one of our first early presidents of the Pewter Plough Corporation, was one of the directors and I was one of the art directors and, as soon as we were through televising one play, we had lunch and then met to plan next week’s show. That was over 50 years ago, and I’m trying to think; I believe the TV art director is his own set decorator —yes, of course! It had to be, since one of McCleery’s chief claims to favor with the producers was his elimination of the setting per se and simply decorating the scene with a minimum of props. It took a bit of ingenuity.
Matinee Theater

Lights Out was an extremely popular American old-time radio program, an early example of a network series devoted mostly to horror and the supernatural, predating Suspense and Inner Sanctum. Versions of Lights Out aired on different networks, at various times, from January 1934 to the summer of 1947 and the series eventually made the transition to television. In 1946, NBC Television brought Lights Out to TV in a series of four specials, broadcast live and produced by Fred Coe, who also contributed three of the scripts. NBC asked Cooper to write the script for the premiere, "First Person Singular", which is told entirely from the point of view of an unseen murderer who kills his obnoxious wife and winds up being executed. Variety gave this first episode a rave review ("undoubtedly one of the best dramatic shows yet seen on a television screen"), but Lights Out did not become a regular NBC-TV series until 1949.
Lights Out

Sugarfoot is an American western television series that aired on ABC from 1957 to 1961. The series stars Will Hutchins as Tom Brewster, an Easterner who comes to the Oklahoma Territory to become a lawyer. Jack Elam is cast in occasional episodes as sidekick Toothy Thompson. Brewster was a correspondence-school student whose apparent lack of cowboy skills earned him the nickname "Sugarfoot", a designation even below that of a tenderfoot.
Sugarfoot

The Detectives is an American crime drama series which ran on ABC during its first two seasons, and on NBC during its third and final season. The series, starring motion picture star Robert Taylor, was produced by Four Star Television. Captain Matt Holbrook (Robert Taylor) is head of the detective division of a large metropolitan police force—a man whose devotion to duty, professional brilliance, and quick judgment are reflected in his 20-year career on the force. His aides, Lt. Johnny Russo (Tige Andrews), Lt. Otto Lindstrom (Russ Thorson), and Sgt. Chris Ballard (Mark Goddard) form a team that is both proficient and warmly human. The stories stress the interrelationships between the men as well as the solutions to crimes and the apprehension of criminals, adding a dimension of human drama to the excitement, action, and suspense inherent in each story of the detectives' difficult, sometimes thankless, and frequently dangerous assignments.
The Detectives

After the end of the Civil War, a former Confederate Army private roams the Wild West, and, as a rogue drifter, gets involved in helping out various settlers threatened by various bad guys... THE REBEL is a 76-episode American western television series starring Nick Adams that debuted on the ABC network from 1959 to 1961. The Rebel was one of the few Goodson-Todman Productions outside of their game show ventures. Beginning in December 2011, The Rebel reruns began to air Saturday mornings on Me-TV.
The Rebel

In ancient Judea, a Jewish aristocrat opposing Roman occupation of his homeland reunites with his childhood friend, now a Roman commander — setting in motion a saga of betrayal, adventure, tragedy, revenge, and faith.
Ben-Hur

It's the hope that sustains the spirit of every GI: the dream of the day when he will finally return home. For three WWII veterans, the day has arrived. But for each man, the dream is about to become a nightmare.
The Best Years of Our Lives

Tate is an American Western television series that aired on NBC from June 8 until September 14, 1960. It was created by Harry Julian Fink, who wrote most of the scripts, and produced by Perry Como's Roncom Video Films, Inc., as a summer replacement for The Perry Como Show. Richard Whorf guest starred once on the series and directed the majority of the episodes. Ida Lupino directed one segment.
Tate

Will Lockhart arrives in Coronado, an isolated town in New Mexico, in search of someone who sells rifles to the Apache tribe, finding himself unwillingly drawn into the convoluted life of a local ranching family whose members seem to have a lot to hide.
The Man from Laramie

Tells the story of one day in the lives of the various people who populate a police detective squad. An embittered cop, Det. Jim McLeod, leads a precinct of characters in their grim daily battle with the city's lowlife. The characters who pass through the precinct over the course of the day include a young petty embezzler, a pair of burglars, and a naive shoplifter.
Detective Story

A struggling young father-to-be gives in to temptation and impulsively steals an envelope of money from the office of a corrupt attorney. Instead of a few hundred dollars, it contains $30,000. When he decides to return the money, things go wrong - and that is only the beginning of his troubles.
Side Street

After The Deerslayer, a white man reared by the Mohicans, and his blood brother Chingachgook, a Mohican chief, save trader Harry Marsh from the hostile Huron Indians, they learn that the Hurons will attack Old Tom Hutter and his two daughters, Hetty and Judith, who live on a floating raft fort on the river.
The Deerslayer

The devil and the spirit of mankind argue as to whether or not humanity is ultimately good or evil.
The Story of Mankind

On the beach one night, Christine Faber, two years a widow, thinks she hears her late husband Paul calling out of the surf...then meets a tall dark man, Alexis, who seems to know all about such things. After more ghostly manifestations, Christine and younger sister Janet become enmeshed in the eerie artifices of Alexis; but he in turn finds himself manipulated into deeper deviltry than he had in mind...
The Amazing Mr. X

An escaped convict, injured during a robbery, falls in love with the woman who nurses him back to health, but their relationship seems doomed from the beginning.
They Live by Night

At a wedding party involving three beautiful women, a young man should choose the most charming. But a professor intervenes to prevent the verdict, remembering the troubles caused by Paris in a similar situation.
Loves of Three Queens

A woman watches her own funeral, then sets out with her lawyer to learn who was in the casket.