Fay Spain

When Fay Spain was an aspiring actress, she was working in a tie shop, where she got to know an associate of the gossip columnist Walter Winchell. When he mentioned her in a column, she received a call from Columbia Pictures. They met with her, but did not offer her a contract, saying she wasn't pretty enough for Hollywood. Before long, she would prove them very wrong, going on to become renowned for her sexy roles as the trashy tease, temptress, and femme fatale in scores of films and TV roles. She had a tumultuous youth, which included becoming a young single mother after divorcing actor and screenwriter John Falvo, whom she had married at 16. Her big break came when film executive Sam Goldwyn spotted her in a television commercial. He originally cast her in the film "Shark Fighters," alongside Charlton Heston, but when Heston dropped out of the film, she was also dropped, for actress Karen Steele. After this false start, she began getting roles on television. In 1955, she made her first appearance on the program "Big Town," which centered on a city newspaper. From there she went on to appear on shows like "Perry Mason" (1958), "Dragnet" (1956), and "The Fugitive" (1965). She made her film debut as the star of the B-movie "Dragstrip Girl," which had guys racing cars for her heart. Her last film role came in 1974 with a small part in Francis Ford Coppola's Mafia epic "The Godfather: Part II."