Search
Mary Castle Profile
|
|
Photo gallery |
| (Mary Ann Noblett) |
|
| 22 January 31 | is born in Pampa, Texas, of American-Irish-Indian descent to Erby and Myrtle E. Noblett, nee Brown. Her mother is one-sixteenth Quapaw Indian. |
| c. 35 | her brother, Erby, Jr., coaches her as a trick rider from the time she is four years old. He will later attend the Police Academy at Long Beach. |
| c. 40 | is stricken with pneumonia at age 9, and her family moves to Fort Worth, Texas |
| c. 43 | moves with her family from Phillips, Texas, to Long Beach, California |
| ? | returns to Texas attending Phillips Junior High School |
| ? | after her illness she studies art at the suggestion of her mother |
| 46 | her daughter is born out of wedlock in Los Angeles |
| 50 | her parents reside at 3565 Delta Avenue, Long Beach; her brother's a Long Beach police officer |
| is member of The Rangerettes, a girls riding group |
|
| ? | is a professional model for a bathing suit company |
| ? | attracts the eye of a studio scout who sees her photograph in a magazine |
| August 50 | is heralded as the lady “who looks more like Hayworth than Rita does” |
| February 51 | with fellow actresses Sunny Vickers and Marie Windsor, she presents fur earrings, "a new Hollywood fad. Mary wears an Aleutian mink stole, with matching earrings set with rhinestones." |
| ? | attends school at Columbia Studios every day for six months |
| October 51 | is seen at the Captain's Table with screenwriter Sy Bartlett |
| 52 | discovers actress Suzan Ball and arranges an interview for her with the head of Universal-International's talent department |
| March 52 | is voted "Number 1 Dream Girl" by the correspondents of the First Marine Air Wing in Korea |
| May 52 | sculpts a nude of herself |
| July 52 | dates Sy Bartlett at the Mocambo |
| October 52 | is named "Miss Curve-X" by the sponsors of Better Posture Week. "Perfect posture will give any woman a figure like Mary's." |
| November 52 | denies that she and Bartlett have set a marriage date |
| Bartlett confirms that he and she, due to a series of disagreements, have come to the end of their romance |
|
| December 52 | is squired around Hollywood by Jerry Ohrbach, the department store heir. "She's the actress who was to fill Rita Hayworth's role before Rita decided to get back in action..." |
| confirms that her romance with Bartlett is over and reveals she has been dating Jerry Ohrbach |
|
| Early January 53 | is among film personalities interviewed at the premiere of The World's Most Beautiful Girls at the State Theater in Long Beach. Others are Alice Kelley, Charles Drake, Jack Kelly, Hugh O'Brian and Palmer Lee. |
| January 53 | is seen with Bartlett at Ciro's even though their quarrels are not patched up |
| she and fellow starlet Jackie Loughery are on hand to congratulate Rock Hudson on Mayor of Universal City, a 400 acre municipality in San Fernando Valley with its own official post office and with film production as its sole industry. Mary is elected police chief; Jackie wins the post of fire marshal. |
|
| February 53 | is seen at the Villa Nova with Joe Perrin |
| March 53 | is appointed honorary police chief of Universal City, California |
| attends the Screenwriter's Guild Awards party with young actor Richard Long. His wedding plans with his fiancée, Mary Briggs, are up in the air again. |
|
| is elected "Miss Crime Prevention" of eleven Western states |
|
| is chosen "Miss Cactus" by the Southwest Cactus Breeders' Association |
|
| she and Universal-International part company |
|
| May 53 | is dancing cheek to cheek with the ex of actress Ellen Drew, writer Sy Bartlett, at the Mocambo |
| March 54 | attends the party given for upcoming star Edmund Purdom and his wife during the filming of The Student Prince, with young actor John Smith |
| April 54 | is off to England for the filming of They Walk Alone opposite Scott Brady |
| is seen at the Circle J Ranch near Newhall with Jack Webb. The press notes that his romance with Dorothy Towne "is dying a slow death." |
|
| 11 April 54 | attends the wedding of Suzan Ball and Dick Long in Santa Barbara |
| May 54 | is seen dancing cheek-to-cheek with actor Fernando Lamas during an evening at the Mocambo |
| August 54 | she and Oleg Cassini, former escort of Grace Kelly, are in a party of five at Pearl Bailey's opening at Ciro's |
| December 54 | she and fellow actress Mari Blanchard vacation in Las Paz |
| January 55 | Louella Parsons asks "What goes with Mary Castle and Mexican millionaire Tony Ruffo? She and Dick Contino met in Las Vegas and have been a telephone duo ever since." |
| March 55 | her 8-year-old daughter, Judy, is reported seriously ill in a Long Beach hospital |
| November 55 | is a twosome with young Andy McLaglen, ex-boyfriend of Diana Lynn. Columnist Jimmy Fidler reports: “I hear she is not dating anymore the realtor, Wallace Ashbury.” |
| December 55 | columnist Jimmy Fidler thinks she has an amazing likeness to the late glamour star Jean Harlow: “beginning quote Mary Castle with her new platinum tresses. She and Andy McLaglen are a constant twosome...” |
| January 56 | her "big moment is Andy McLaglen, son of Victor. Andy was once very much in love with Diana Lynn." |
| February 56 | pals try to reconcile her and Andy |
| 57 | marries Texas oilman William France Minchen. He’s 27; she’s 26. She tries to get him to act under the stage name of William Grant. He will be the love of her life. |
| ? | sues for separate maintenance and for divorce from Minchen ten months later |
| 22 December 57 | is arrested as a plain drunk when she allegedly tries to kick and bite two deputy sheriffs in Hollywood. "Officers John Aiken and K. H. Smiley said they found Miss Castle fighting with her husband in the parked car while their ten-year-old daughter cried in the back seat. Miss Castle assertedly attacked the lawmen after they escorted her and her husband, William Grant, to the couple's home. The actress assertedly called the deputies 'punks' and threatened to have them fired." She is booked at the West Hollywood station and then transferred to the Los Angeles County Jail. She is released a short time later and ordered to appear in Beverly Hills Municipal Court for arraignment but fails to appear and forfeits $100 bail. |
| 14 February 58 | in a Santa Monica court, Grant claims he's out of work but, Superior Judge Edward Brand orders him to pay his estranged wife $350 a month anyway, for temporary support. "She is television actress Mary Castle, 26, who has filed suit here for separate maintenance. Grant, 32, has a divorce action pending against Miss Castle in Los Angeles. He charges cruelty." Grant's attorney says that his client is unemployed and "if it were not for his mother he would starve to death." The mother should not be required to support Miss Castle, the attorney says. "The mother should not be required to support a man of his age either," the judge says. |
| March 58 | confides to columnist Mike Connolly that she's "fed up with Rita Hayworth running around town looking like Mary Castle" |
| July 58 | is seen at the Round Robin with Norm Olson |
| November 58 | dates John Duval at the Round Robin |
| December 58 | goes to court with lawyer Donald E. Leon and gets a bench warrant for the arrest of her estranged husband, William Minchen, "who’s in Texas settling the estate of his mother. She was worth millions. Mary has a separate maintenance suit on file against Minchen. The court awarded her $350 a month temporary support. She says she hasn’t received it." Minchen will marry Marilyn J. Boudreau in 1977 and die at age 66 in 1997 in Texas. |
| September 59 | columnist Harrison Carroll reports: “At Dino’s Lodge with George Seeburns, Mary Castle told me she got her divorce in Texas.” |
| 14 September 59 | is revived by artificial respiration and taken to Malibu Emergency Hospital after being found lifeless and nearly nude on the beach in Malibu, Florida, after a gay midnight swim. She had been overcome after two different plunges into the surf. She and a friend, Carol Erickson, arrived from Houston, Texas, and decided to escape the heat wave. A bartender from their hotel, Roy Yiurria, went along with them for the dip. He claims he pulled her from the surf when he thought she was drowning, and when he returned after calling officers, he found her back in the water. The press reports she wore only panties and a bra and had to be rescued by a bartender. |
| 28 October 59 | is fined after an arrest of simple drunk charges when she and a young male companion create an early morning disturbance |
| 26 November 59 | tries to hang herself in jail after being booked as a drunk in Beverly Hills, California. She twisted her dress into a noose and attached one end to a cell door and placed the other end around her neck. She is found in a semi-conscious state. She is revived and released on $105 bail. The police say she fought, bit, kicked, hit, and swore at officers when they arrested her as a drunk in an automobile at night. She claims she had been drinking heavily because she was despondent over divorce troubles. |
| ? | denies a police report that she attempted suicide |
| December 59 | is taken to court by an interior decorating firm seeking $4,500. She testifies before Commissioner Jo Sheldon that she has no financial assets other than a watch and several diamond rings. The decorating firm obtains a judgment for work done on her apartment before she separated from Grant. |
| March 60 | files for bankruptcy after being left with $20,000 in unpaid bills by her millionaire Texas groom |
| 21 April 60 | is arrested in the wee hours when found sprawled in her car on the parking lot of a Sunset Strip bar. She denies she was drunk and says she had dropped her car keys and was lying on the seat trying to find them. "If I have to," she warns, "I can tell a story about this that will take the top right off city hall." The deputies who arrested her say she was "sullen and uncooperative." She pleads innocent and asks for a jury trial, which is set for May 13 in Municipal Court. A few hours later, she is served in jail with a warrant in connection with a $4,500 judgment entered in January 1959. The document orders her to appear in Los Angeles Superior Court for further examination as a judgment debtor. "I am not guilty of anything and this is a deliberate attempt to ruin my career," she charges. She's released again after agreeing to turn over a 1958 Cadillac to Harry La Chance, Inc., to satisfy the judgment but is immediately re-arrested on an old traffic ticket and is finally released after posting $58 bail. |
| 26 April 60 | pleads guilty to failure to appear on a 1958 traffic citation and running a red light in Van Nuys, California. She must pay a $30 fine or serve three days in jail. A $5 fine for running a red light is suspended and a charge of driving without a license is dismissed. The press reports that she "still must appear May 13 on drunk charges in Beverly Hills and face a warrant for failure to pay for furniture she bought." |
| June 60 | gives up movies to become press agent for New Orleans Kitchen gourmet specialties |
| 6 September 60 | marries Wayne Cote, an insurance detective, in Los Angeles. Both are 29. |
| February 61 | is the new hostess at the Garden Room restaurant in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel |
| August 61 | is expected to seek annulment of her marriage to Cote |
| 7 May 71 | marries Erwin A. Frezza in Los Angeles. He's 42; she's 40. She and Frezza will separate soon afterwards. |
| July 72 | divorces Frezza in Los Angeles |
| November 85 | her father dies at age 88 |
| ? | resides in Lodi, California |
| 29 April 98 | as Mary Ann Noblett, she dies at age 67 in Palm Springs, California, of lung cancer. At the end she had only one quarter of one lung to breathe from. Among the survivors is her daughter, Judy Ferguson. |
| Sources: Cynthia Lee, Picture Show Who's Who on the Screen, Screenland, Movie News, The Monessen Daily Independent, Pottstown Mercury, The Lethbridge Herald, The Lowell Sun, The Times Recorder, The News, The Newark Advocate and American Tribune, The Independent Record, Nevada State Journal, The Daily Gleaner, The Lancaster Eagle Gazette, Reno Evening Gazette, The Herald-Press, The Lima News, Reno Evening Gazette, Press-Telegram, Independent Journal, Humboldt Standard, Long Beach Press-Telegram, The Modesto Bee, The Daily Review, Star-News, Pasadena Independent, The Fresno Bee, The Long Beach Independent, Oakland Tribune, The Tin Star Intelligencer, www.Ancestry.com | |
| Recommended Books: | |
| Links: Filmography | |