Virginia Leith

Actress Virginia Leith built a career in the 1950s that culminated with her most famous role, as a body-less head in "The Brain That Wouldn't Die" (1962). Born in Cleveland, Ohio, she made her film debut in "Fear and Desire" (1953). The low-budget film was the first directed by Stanley Kubrick with the actress playing a peasant captured by four soldiers. She signed a contract with 20th Century Fox and had a run of success in the mid-1950s acting in studio fare. She acted with Ginger Rogers in "Black Widow" (1955), Victor Mature in "Violent Saturday" (1955), and William Holden in "Toward the Unknown" (1956). The actress starred with Guy Madison in the space race drama "On the Threshold of Space" (1956). She was paired with Robert Wagner and Jeffrey Hunter, with whom she had also appeared in "White Feather" (1954), in the noir classic "A Kiss Before Dying" (1956). Leith also appeared on television on a regular basis, on shows such as "Jane Wyman Presents The Fireside Theater" (NBC, 1955-58) and "The Millionaire" (CBS, 1955-60). She married actor Don Harron in 1960 and left acting. A role that she had filmed before that, playing a woman killed in a car crash whose mad scientist fiancé keeps her head alive, was released in 1962. The film, "The Brain That Wouldn't Die," would find a cult horror following. After divorcing Harron in 1968, she eventually returned to acting for a brief period in the late-1970s. She made guest appearances on a number of the eras popular crime shows, including "Starsky and Hutch" (ABC, 1975-79), "Baretta" (ABC, 1975-78), and "Police Woman" (NBC, 1974-78). She was part of the ensemble for the disaster mini-series "Condominium" (HBO, 1980) starring Barbara Eden. She retired from acting again in the early-80s. Leith died after a brief illness at her home in Palm Springs, California on November 4, 2019 at the age of 94.