Margia Dean

She was born in Chicago, Illinois but moved to San Francisco, California with her parents at a young age.[2] She began acting at the age of 7, appearing on stage in many child roles and later won the Women's National Shakespeare Contest for her role as Juliet in a production of Romeo and Juliet.[2] She also took up modeling and was named "Miss San Francisco" and "Miss California" in 1939.[3][4] She was a top-five runner-up to Patricia Donnelly in the "Miss America 1939" competition.[2]

She made her feature film debut in Casanova in Burlesque (1944) and adopted her stage name, Margia Dean.[2] Although never under contract to a studio, most of the films, some 16 in all,[1] she made were for the producer Robert L. Lippert.[2] Her first leading role was in Shep Come Home (1948) and roles followed in Red Desert (1949), FBI Girl (1951), The Lonesome Trail (1955), Villa!! (1958) and Seven Women from Hell (1961). Dean starred in a 1958 western, Ambush at Cimarron Pass, that featured Clint Eastwood in one of his earliest film roles. She also portrayed a trapeze artist in the 1961 circus tale The Big Show, which starred Esther Williams and Robert Vaughn.

Her association with Lippert had led to her being cast in The Quatermass Xperiment (1955), the first Hammer horror film.[5] Frustrated that her roles were predominantly in B movies, she eventually retired from acting following her marriage in 1965 to her second husband, architect Felipe Alvarez. Her final film was Moro Witch Doctor (1964). She briefly became involved in movie production, producing The Long Rope (1961) with Hugh Marlowe as well as a number of television pilots.[2] She has since been vice-president of a real estate firm and has worked in costume design and interior decoration.[2]

• List of living actors from the Golden Age of Hollywood

• Margia Dean at IMDb