Kathleen Crowley

Kathleen Crowley

1929-12-26 – 2017-04-23 (age 87)
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Biography

Betty Jane Kathleen Crowley (born December 26, 1931) was an American actress and was Miss New Jersey in 1949 and a contestant for Miss America in the same year (she came in sixth). After the pageants, she became an actress who specialized in being phenomenally seductive in TV series and movies. Most well known for playing a variety of sirens in TV's Maverick (1957) opposite James Garner, Jack Kelly, and Roger Moore, she appears in eight episodes, a series record for leading ladies; "The Jeweled Gun" (with Jack Kelly), "Maverick Springs" (with James Garner and Jack Kelly), "The Misfortune Teller" (with Garner), "A Bullet for the Teacher" (with Roger Moore), "Kiz" (with Moore), and "Dade City Dodge," "The Troubled Heir," and "One of Our Trains Is Missing," with Kelly. Crowley made 81 television appearances on various series and appeared in twenty movies between 1951 and 1970 (one of her last movie roles was in Downhill Racer with Robert Redford). Many of her films were low-budget sci-fi and horror movies, but she seemed to appear in practically every narrative television series produced in the late '50s and '60s, including Bourbon Street Beat, Surfside 6, Hawaiian Eye, 77 Sunset Strip, Bat Masterson, Bonanza, Branded, My Three Sons, Donna Reed, Perry Mason, Checkmate, Bronco, Route 66, Thriller, Batman, Disneyland, Family Affair, Rawhide, The Lone Ranger, and many others.

Crowley was often confused with her acting contemporary Pat Crowley (frequently billed as "Patricia Crowley"), who appeared as guest leading lady in different episodes of many of the same television series and was not related. The two Crowleys were apparently never cast in the same episode.

In the Philip Roth novel American Pastoral, the protagonist marries Miss New Jersey 1949, in the book named Dawn Dwyer and having few similarities to Crowley's post-Miss New Jersey life (including a poorer finish in the Miss America pageant).

Description above from the Wikipedia article Kathleen Crowley,  licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

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Known For

Downhill Racer
Downhill Racer

1969

as American Newspaper Woman

Ten Wanted Men
Westward Ho, The Wagons!
Westward Ho, The Wagons!

1956

as Laura Thompson

The Silver Whip
The Silver Whip

1953

as Kathy Riley

Showdown
Showdown

1963

as Estelle

The Lawyer
The Lawyer

1970

as Alice Fiske

Curse of the Undead
Curse of the Undead

1959

as Dolores Carter

Target Earth
Target Earth

1954

as Nora King

Seven Cities of Gold
Seven Cities of Gold

1955

as Mother

The Rebel Set
The Rebel Set

1959

as Jeanne Mapes

Female Jungle
Female Jungle

1956

as Peggy Voe

FBI Code 98
FBI Code 98

1963

as Marian Nichols

The Flame Barrier
The Flame Barrier

1958

as Carol Dahlmann

Sabre Jet
Sabre Jet

1953

as Susan Crenshaw

The Phantom Stagecoach
The Phantom Stagecoach

1957

as Fran Maroon

City of Shadows
City of Shadows

1955

as Fern Fellows

The Quiet Gun
The Quiet Gun

1957

as Teresa Carpenter

The Farmer Takes a Wife