Cathy O'Donnell

Cathy O'Donnell

Born: July 6, 1923
Died: April 11, 1970
in Siluria, Alabama, USA
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.

Movies for Cathy O'Donnell...

Title: Tate
Released: June 8, 1960
Type: TV
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.
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Ben-Hur
Title: Ben-Hur
Character: Tirzah
Released: November 18, 1959
Type: Movie
In 25 AD, Judah Ben-Hur, a Jew in ancient Judea, opposes the occupying Roman empire. Falsely accused by a Roman childhood friend-turned-overlord of trying to kill the Roman governor, he is put into slavery and his mother and sister are taken away as prisoners.
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Title: The Detectives
Released: October 16, 1959
Type: TV
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.
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Title: The Rebel
Character: Felicity Bowman
Released: October 4, 1959
Type: TV
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.
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Title: The Rebel
Character: Prudence Gant
Released: October 4, 1959
Type: TV
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.
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My World Dies Screaming
Title: My World Dies Screaming
Character: Sheila Wayne Tierney (as Kathy O'Donnell)
Released: August 20, 1958
Type: Movie
A newlywed is terrified when her husband brings her to live in the old house that figures in her recurring nightmare.
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The Story of Mankind
Title: The Story of Mankind
Character: Early Christian Woman
Released: November 8, 1957
Type: Movie
The devil and the spirit of mankind argue as to whether or not humanity is ultimately good or evil.
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Title: Perry Mason
Character: Norma Brooks
Released: September 21, 1957
Type: TV
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.
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Title: Sugarfoot
Character: Angel
Released: September 17, 1957
Type: TV
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.
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The Deerslayer
Title: The Deerslayer
Character: Judith Hutter
Released: September 10, 1957
Type: Movie
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.
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Title: Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre
Character: Jennie Parsons
Released: October 5, 1956
Type: TV
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.
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Title: Matinee Theater
Released: October 31, 1955
Type: TV
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.
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The Man from Laramie
Title: The Man from Laramie
Character: Barbara Waggoman
Released: August 19, 1955
Type: Movie
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.
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Mad at the World
Title: Mad at the World
Character: Anne Bennett
Released: May 13, 1955
Type: Movie
A neighborhood is terrorized by group of young juvenile delinquents called The WolfPack. When a young father's infant child is seriously injured because of the WolfPack, he decides that the police aren't working fast enough to catch the ones who hurt his baby and sets out to infiltrate the gang himself and mete out the punishment they deserve.
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Loves of Three Queens
Title: Loves of Three Queens
Character: Enone (segment: The Face That Launched a Thousand Ships)
Released: December 24, 1954
Type: Movie
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.
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Title: Climax!
Character: Mona Herbert
Released: October 7, 1954
Type: TV
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.
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Eight O'Clock Walk
Title: Eight O'Clock Walk
Character: Jill Manning
Released: March 16, 1954
Type: Movie
Only a British cabdriver's (Richard Attenborough) wife (Cathy O'Donnell) and lawyer (Derek Farr) believe him innocent of killing a little girl.
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The Woman's Angle
Title: The Woman's Angle
Character: Nina van Rhyne
Released: February 12, 1952
Type: Movie
The organising force of a family of musical prodigies, Robert Mansell is a frustrated composer in seach of one thing personal happiness. This search, however, has landed him in the divorce courts and the judge's summary does not paint him in a favourable light.
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Detective Story
Title: Detective Story
Character: Susan Carmichael
Released: November 1, 1951
Type: Movie
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.
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Never Trust a Gambler
Title: Never Trust a Gambler
Character: Virginia Merrill
Released: July 13, 1951
Type: Movie
A small-time gambler on the run from the law hides in his ex-wife's house.
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The Miniver Story
Title: The Miniver Story
Character: Judy Miniver
Released: October 26, 1950
Type: Movie
The Second World War is over, and the Miniver family is trying to keep themselves together in post-War Britain, among continuing shortages and growing tensions within the family.
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Side Street
Title: Side Street
Character: Ellen Norson
Released: March 23, 1950
Type: Movie
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, and when he decides to return the money things go wrong and that is only the beginning of his troubles.
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They Live by Night
Title: They Live by Night
Character: Catherine "Keechie" Mobley
Released: November 1, 1949
Type: Movie
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.
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Title: Lights Out
Released: July 19, 1949
Type: TV
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.
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The Amazing Mr. X
Title: The Amazing Mr. X
Character: Janet Burke
Released: July 29, 1948
Type: Movie
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...
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Bury Me Dead
Title: Bury Me Dead
Character: Rusty
Released: October 18, 1947
Type: Movie
A woman watches her own funeral, then sets out with her lawyer to learn who was in the casket.
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The Best Years of Our Lives
Title: The Best Years of Our Lives
Character: Wilma Cameron
Released: December 25, 1946
Type: Movie
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.