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Sheila Ryan Profile
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| (Katherine Elizabeth McLaughlin) |
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| 8 June 21 | is born in Topeka, Kansas |
| arrives in Hollywood at age three months |
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| ? | is discovered by agent Sue Carol and signed to a contract by Paramount while still in Hollywood High School, where she majors in art |
| ? | is signed to a film contract when appearing on a Los Angeles television program |
| ? | is awarded an art scholarship, but she turns it down so that she can be in movies |
| ? | debuts in Paramount's The Way of All Flesh, but disagrees with the bosses about her salary |
| 40 | appears in a few films under her real name, Betty McLaughlin |
| May 40 | has a term contract with 20th Century-Fox |
| October 40 | is selected a “Baby Star” by the Motion Picture Publicists Association. The twelve other "Baby Stars" are Ella Bryan, Lucia Carroll, Lorraine Elliott, Jayne Hazard, Joan Leslie, Kay Leslie, Marilyn (Lynn) Merrick, Gay Parkes, Lois Ranson, Peggy Diggins, Patricia Van Cleve, and Tanya Widrin. |
| November 40 | fills Gene Markey's spare time. She's "one of the prettier ways of forgetting Hedy Lamarr." |
| February 41 | she and Rudy Vallee make Pam Springs hotter with their presence |
| is selected "Health Girl" by press agent maneuverings for National Health Week. The press reports her abed with flu. |
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| March 41 | columnist Jimmy Fidler reports: "Sheila Ryan, silly girl, is sporting a supreme case of flu but won't lie down." |
| she and Robert Foulk, once engaged to Bette Davis, test for love |
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| April 41 | models a natural Milan off-the-face hat, covered with heavy veiling, as her first spring bonnet |
| columnist Jimmy Fidler reports spotting Mickey Rooney at a nearby resort "the other day. Both Linda Darnell and Sheila Ryan, whom he dates when Linda is busy, were there. He took Linda home." |
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| June 41 | the press wonders: "Mickey Rooney starts getting seen around with Sheila Ryan, and then she suddenly is discovered being tested for an Andy Hardy picture." |
| actor William Orr has gotten around to her |
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| columnist Ken Morgan reports that Mickey Rooney doesn't dial her "phone number anymore, because Sheila is getting down to the business of career - and careers take too much time for gallivanting. |
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| July 41 | Sheila Ryan,” says Jack Mulcahey, “is a fugitive from a Mickey." |
| August 41 | is pictured with big All-American Jarrin Jawn Kimbrough heading "back to their dressing rooms after a hard days work on John's first movie, Lone Star Ranger." |
| September 41 | she and young actor Bob Stack have discovered romance |
| is caught beautifying an Army car. The caption reads: "Nobody but a tin soldier would object to a blitz buggy ride with this military marvel." |
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| concentrates now on Henry Wilson, the agent |
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| November 41 | is pictured at a Hollywood nightclub with the Army's champion movie attendee, Kenneth Wilkinson |
| January 42 | she and actor Don Castle become serious |
| March 42 | columnist Jimmy Fidler reports that she broke dates with Bob Stack to go out with Don Castle |
| columnist Louella Parsons reports chatter in Hollywood: "John Payne has ceased to look and act as if he had lost his last friend. Yes, it's a girl! Sheila Ryan, no less, the cutie who used to be the heartthrob of Mickey Rooney's life. I don't say it's serious. Sheila has had many admirers, but I say he doesn't look as dejected and unhappy as he did at the time he and Anne Shirley said adieu to marriage. At first he didn't know what to do with himself, now he has an apartment, and he and Sheila have been stepping out here and there with almost clocklike regularity." |
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| her father enlists in the Army |
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| April 42 | columnist Dorothy Kilgallen reports that "John Payne's successor to Anne Shirley is Sheila Ryan, the starlet." |
| May 42 | she and John Payne are seen happy as can be in a corner at Slapsie Maxie's |
| June 42 | columnist Jimmy Fidler reports that "John Payne's heart still belongs to ex-wife Anne Shirley and that his dates with Sheila Ryan, Anne's best pal, are an effort toward reconciliation." |
| her birthday brought her four watches from as many suitors |
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| August 42 | is on call for "grease monkey" jobs for the American Women's Voluntary Services. "She formerly was a clerk at a Hollywood department store." |
| September 42 | columnist Dorothy Kilgallen reports she and Howard Hughes "are making it look like an authentic romance" |
| October 42 | scoffs at reports that she's "romancing with Howard (great lover) Hughes" |
| Sid Silver's crush on her is being smothered by millionaire Howard Hughes |
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| November 42 | columnist Louella Parsons reports that Sheila's seeing Andy McLaglen, Vic's son, often these days |
| April 43 | receives a piece of silk from a Japanese parachute from Navy Lieutenant Charles Carpenter, somewhere in the South Pacific. Attached is a note: "We nipped this Nip's down trip." |
| November 44 | is the new love of Steve Crane, ex-husband of Lana Turner |
| December 44 | her new heartbeat is George Cameron, the brother of Arthur Cameron, who is engaged to actress Kay Aldrich |
| January 45 | columnist Louella Parsons notes Peter Lawford "being plenty attentive to Sheila Ryan at Billingsley's" |
| February 45 | is five feet, five inches tall and weighs 108 pounds |
| March 45 | columnist Walter Winchell thinks that she and Steve Crane are an elopement case |
| July 45 | columnist Jimmy Fidler thinks she and Laraine Day are peas-in-a-pod |
| 4 October 45 | announces in Hollywood that she will marry cowboy actor Allan "Rocky" Lane the next day. "She was formerly under contract to both 20th Century-Fox and RKO but is now free-lancing and has been rumored as engaged to Mickey Rooney and William Grant at various times. Lane is under contract to Republic Studios." |
| 5 October 45 | marries Lane in Las Vegas. He's 36; she's 24. |
| January 46 | announces her separation from Lane in Hollywood and says she will file for divorce shortly |
| February 46 | columnist Louella Parsons reports: "When Sheila Ryan and Allan Lane decided to call it quits there was no embarrassment about who kept the apartment. Alan had subleased his own apartment when they married and he was able to get it back, so he just returned to his old quarters. But not only is Sheila now free, white and over 21, but she's going to work for Sol Wurtzel in the top femme spot in Deadline for Murder." |
| blames a whirlwind courtship when she wins a divorce from Lane in Los Angeles. "I found out that my husband had a very rigid plan for me," she testifies. "He wanted to control everything I did. He criticized me sometimes even for things he thought I would say." |
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| April 46 | opens an exclusive dress shop in Beverly Hills |
| 25 March 47 | she and screen player Edward Norris announce they will be married in Mexico City April 30 |
| April 47 | columnist Harrison Carroll reports that "the Sheila Ryan-Edward Norris marriage plans are still on. She tells me they'll wed in Mexico in about a month - sooner if she finishes her last picture for Eagle-Lion." |
| June 48 | producer Bryan "Brynie" Foy is expected to rush back to Hollywood to straighten out the Sheila Ryan-Edward Norris marital crisis. He introduced them during a junket to Texas and asked Eddie to "pay special attention to her" because Sheila was pining for her boyfriend in California. They hit it off so well they were married on their return to Hollywood." |
| January 49 | Norris didn't go through with his Mexican divorce, and he is now reconciled with her |
| she and Norris will be co-starred in Eagle-Lion's Permission Granted |
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| 50 | meets her next husband, Pat Buttram, while filming Mule Train with singing cowboy actor Gene Autry |
| June 51 | is the partner of Bob Waterfield, husband of Jane Russell, in his first love scene in Jungle Jim in the Forbidden Land |
| October 51 | is in the Movietime U.S.A. caravan, a goodwill tour of the States, along with Gloria Grahame, Scott Brady, MGM producer Leon Gordon, screenwriter Martin Rackin, and the Texas Rangers, a Kansas City male quartette |
| 26 December 51 | marries Pat Buttram in Las Vegas. Born in Winston County, Alabama, the son of a circuit-riding minister, Buttram studied theology at Birmingham Southern College. |
| 11 March 54 | her daughter, Kathleen Kerry, is born in Los Angeles |
| March 59 | recuperates in the West Valley Community Hospital after major abdominal surgery |
| March 61 | takes part in a fashion show and luncheon by the Coalettes, the women's group of the West Valley Church of Religious Science in Reseda |
| November 67 | is chairman at a theater party for Camelot at Warners Cinerama in Van Nuys |
| she and Buttram reside in Northridge, California |
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| May 70 | attends a party thrown for Senator George Murphy in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Donnelly in Encino. Among the guests are Efrem Zimbailst, Jr., and Mr. and Mrs. Ken Curtis. |
| 4 November 75 | as Katherine Buttram, she dies at age 54 from a mysterious lung ailment at Motion Picture Hospital, Woodland Hills, California. Physicians are unable to diagnose the specific disease that claimed her life. She had been ill for several years. Besides her husband, she is survived by a daughter, Kerry, 19. |
| 6 November 75 | her funeral services are held at Pierce Brothers Mortuary Chapel in Hollywood |
| is interred in a cemetery in Los Angeles County, California |
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| Sources: Oakland Tribune, Gazette and Bulletin, Stevens Point Daily Journal, Mansfield News-Journal, The Helena Daily Independent, Nevada State Journal, The Port Arthur News, Syracuse Herald-Journal, Fitchburg Sentinel, Middletown Times Herald, Wellsboro Gazette, The Lowell Sun, The Vidette-Messenger, Edwardsville Intelligencer, Waterloo Sunday Courier, Ames Daily Tribune, The Piqua Daily Call, Lincoln Journal, The Post-Standard, The Era, Pottstown Mercury, The Monessen Daily Independent, The Zanesville Signal, The News, The Progress, The Times Recorder, The Lancaster Eagle-Gazette, Van Nuys News, www.Ancestry.com | |
| Recommended Books: | |
| Links: Filmography B Western Heroines | |