Doreen Woodbury Profile

Doreen Woodbury

27 / 30	is born in Sydney, Australia
September 53	columnist Jimmy Fidler tells that she will be in the cast of Son of Sinbad, together with Katherine Cassidy, top fashion model; Judy Jorell, "Miss Michigan of 1952;" Roxanne Arlen, "Miss Detroit;" and Jackie Loughery, "Miss U.S.A. 1952."
October 54	columnist Walter Winchell reports that Artie Shaw, whose latest marriage has faded, sighs deeply with her
November 54	whips up a bikini for the photographers at the National Newspaper Week celebration in Las Vegas
56	Columbia’s Harry Cohn orders a build-up for her
55	she and William Bendix examine “snow cheese” at The Flamingo, in Las Vegas
January 55	she and Abe Schiller, Flamingo Hotel executive, are pictured building a snow man in Las Vegas
November 56	she and Ted Marcuse are reported signed for featured roles in an upcoming Romson production, The 27th Day
c. 6 February 57	calls her 27-year-old friend Elizabeth Rose post-midnight to make sure she will drop by in the morning if there is no answer to her telephone. Alarmed, Elizabeth rushes over to her apartment at 230 East 51st Street. There, at 2.45 a.m., she finds Doreen sitting at the dinette table, dying from an apparent overdose of sleeping pills. When the ambulance physician arrives, she is dead, at the age of 30.
	Rose tells the police Doreen summoned her by phone shortly after 3 a.m. When she arrived at Doreen's apartment, Doreen opened the door for her but appeared unsteady. "You think I've been drinking but I haven't,” she quotes her as saying. Miss Rose says she gave her some milk and then called a doctor, but Doreen was dead by the time he arrived, having died in her arms. Rose says Doreen had seemed depressed when she first spoke to her on the phone, but made no reference to any feeling of depression when she arrived at her apartment and did not indicate she had taken a sedative. Police say Doreen had been under doctor's care for a liver ailment.
7 February 57	police officially list her death as a suicide, saying they found a suicide note and two pill bottles, one empty. In her note, Doreen asks that her jewelry and other property go to her mother in Yagoona, near Sydney, Australia.
9 February 57	columnist Walter Winchell writes "the police are seeking a man, who visited actress Doreen Woodbury, 30, who took an overdose and died soon after he departed..."
?	columnist Walter Winchell thinks that the wealthy Greek crowd with whom she traveled the smart spots, scattered for fear of being questioned by police about her suicide
?	her 67-year-old mother, Olive Janett of Chester Hill, Australia, says she has not received a letter from Doreen in three years
Mid-February 57	columnist Leonard Lyons reports: "A young man who joined my table at El Morocco the other day was somewhat saddened. Only a few days earlier he'd met Doreen Woodbury, the TV actress, and dated her for dinner last Tuesday night. At 8 p.m. he'd phoned her to explain how sorry he was but that he couldn't make it. The next morning he walked into a flower shop, ordered flowers to be sent to her with a note of apology. While waiting, he read the newspapers. The front pages reported the suicide of the young beauty. He turned to the manager of the flower shop and sighed: 'Cancel.’”
March 57	columnist Dorothy Kilgallen reports that her great love was a comedian, who left for Miami when he saw the headlines about her suicide. "She tried desperately to reach him before the tragedy."

Sources: Fallen Angels by Kirk Crivello, The New York Times, The Odessa American, Syracuse Herald-Journal, The Zanesville Signal, The Coshocton Tribune, Tempo, Nevada State Journal, Tri-City Herald, Oakland Tribune, Burlington Daily Times-News
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