Gloria Saunders Profile

Gloria Saunders

	(Gloria Ella Saunders)
29 September 27	is born in Columbia, South Carolina, to George D. and Lucille P. Saunders
?	works on the radio and at the Little Theater in Charlotte, North Carolina
?	is discovered by a talent scout in Columbia
June 44	screen tests at Paramount at age 16
August 44	she and fellow starlet Julie Gibson are pictured "eating watermelon while seated on a cake of ice to keep cool when the mercury reaches a new high"
c. 45	is critically injured in a car accident. Her face is cut and lacerated from the tip of her chin to her forehead.
?	after three plastic surgery operations that completely remove the scars below her nose, she begins making the agent rounds again. "No luck. The deepest and most obvious scar remained, just above the bridge of her nose."
May 46	is pictured wearing a $1,000,000 suit studded with 64 precious gems - "and you can be sure she wears it for picture purposes only"
April 47	models fashion for Lois Leeds
?	is sent to the best plastic surgeons in the country and now "you won't find a tell-tale mark of the accident"
December 49	columnist Dorothy Kilgallen tells: "Before I left Hollywood, John Barrymore, Jr., gave his ring to Gloria Saunders, a schoolgirl friend..."
?	meets TV director Arthur Rue "Tommy" Thompson while appearing a year in TV mysteries
October 50	columnist John Crosby writes that TV's "Stars Over Hollywood" is "a misnomer because it has produced no genuine stars, in fact no name actors of any importance of all. Leading role in the one I mentioned was filled by Gloria Saunders whoever she is"
22 October 50	marries Thompson in Los Angeles. He's 2 months her junior.
July 51	says: "If it hadn't been for the accident I wouldn't have gone in to television and if I hadn't gone into television I wouldn't have met Tommy."
October 51	columnist Erskine Johnson writes: "All Hollywood's cheering the comeback of Gloria Saunders in 3000 A.D., Red Snow, and other films. Plastic surgery removed the scars of an auto accident a couple of years ago."
April 54	the press tells that she reads 2 to 4 books at a time, preferring Thomas Wolfe
May 54	is reported "alerted by the stork. She'll sit it out in Phoenix..."
54	her first baby is born in Phoenix, Arizona
56	divorces Thompson. Both are 28. He will marry Joanne Lensch in June 1960 and divorce her in 1970. He will die at age 72 in 2000 in California.
September 56	columnist Louella Parsons reports "Art Mooney, orchestra leader, once Jayne Mansfield's heartbeat, at the Villa Capri with actress Gloria Saunders..."
?	remarries
4 June 80	as Gloria Ella Maier, she dies at age 52 in Kern County, California

Sources: The Independent-Record, Middletown Times Herald, The Daily Review, The Post-Standard, The Charleston Gazette, Dixon Evening Telegraph, www.Ancestry.com
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Links: Filmography