Margia Dean

She was the executive producer of the western The Long Rope (1961) starring Hugh Marlowe. She was also associate producer on a couple of minor '60s films made in England and produced a TV pilot.

Although she admittedly took on a number of roles that were beneath her talent in order to pay the bills, some of her better acting appearances actually came later in her career, notably The Secret of the Purple Reef (1960) with Peter Falk and The Big Show (1961) starring Esther Williams and Cliff Robertson. In subsequent years Margia expanded her interests to include producing at a time when few women could break into such a male-dominated field.

She wrote the lyrics to two songs that she ended up singing in the film Villa!! (1958). The music for one of them was provided by composer Alfred Newman. She sang in a couple of her other films as well. A nightclub singing tour was once planned for her but never came about due to her film output.

Finally earning co-star billing, albeit on a second-string level, she became much more visible in her films, which included Red Desert (1949), The Lonesome Trail (1955), Villa!! (1958) and the cult classics The Quatermass Xperiment (1955), 7 Women from Hell (1961) and (her last) Moro Witch Doctor (1964). At the same time she appeared in myriad TV and theater productions, and engaged in an enviable jet-setting social life with escorts that included Prince Aly Khan. Frustrations set in, however, as the obviously talented actress found herself almost exclusively bonded in the "B" film ranks where she could still attract audiences as a temptress or villainess.

She made little impression until winning her first leading role in Shep Comes Home (1948) co-starring Robert Lowery for Screen Guild.

While she occasionally graced an "A" picture--including Living in a Big Way (1947) starring Gene Kelly, Take Care of My Little Girl (1951) with Jeanne Crain and Mitzi Gaynor and The Revolt of Mamie Stover (1956) starring Jane Russell--her roles were usually smaller in size.

In 1944 the 22-year-old hopeful made her film debut at Republic Pictures but was not signed to a contract. She went on to freelance in other parts for both major (Columbia, MGM, Fox) and minor (Monogram, PRC) studios, where strong focus remained on her shapely figure.

Margia was offered roles on Broadway following the attention she received at the "Miss America Pageant," but instead went back home to finish high school and married her teenage sweetheart, Hal Fischer, in 1939 at age 17. Fischer went on to become a second-string All-American player and well-known basketball coach. The marriage did not last (less than six years) but the two remained friends.

Stunning, dark-haired '40s and '50s leading lady Margia Dean was the daughter of a Greek lawyer. Her parents moved from Athens to the US in 1913, a number of years before her birth on April 7, 1922, in Chicago, Illinois. The youngest of three girls, she was christened Marguerite Louise Skliris. Her family moved to San Francisco when she was 4 years old and by age 7 she was a working actress whose stage credits included Little Eva in "Uncle Tom's Cabin," Mytyl in "The Blue Bird" and Becky Thatcher in "Tom Sawyer. "As a juvenile performer she won talent scholarships for both the Reginald Travers Repertory Company and the Henry Duffy Players companies, and at age 15 won a national Shakespearean performance contest. Margia grew up to become a dazzling beauty and began appearing in a number of pageants that would eventually attract the attention of Hollywood. She won the titles of "Miss San Francisco" and "Miss California," which led to a first-prize talent in the "Miss America" contest.