Phyllis St. Felix Thaxter

 Phyllis St. Felix Thaxter (November 20, 1919 – August 14, 2012)

Prior to appearing in movies, Thaxter was on the stage. When Dorothy McGuire went to Hollywood, Thaxter replaced her in the Broadway play Claudia. In 1944, she signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Her movie debut was opposite Van Johnson in the 1944 wartime film Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo. In the 1945 film-noir Bewitched, Thaxter played Joan Alris Ellis, a woman suffering from split personality. In 1948, she played a cattle owner's daughter alongside Barbara Bel Geddes in Blood on the Moon. At MGM, she routinely portrayed the ever-patient wife to a number of leading men. She moved to Warner Brothers in the 1950s, but usually played the same type of roles. Thaxter's career stalled after an attack of polio in 1952. She made a comeback in such television series as Rawhide, portraying Pauline Cushman in the episode "The Blue Spy" (1961). In 1978, Thaxter was cast along with Glenn Ford, as Jonathan and Martha Kent in the blockbuster film Superman. The film was produced by her daughter Skye Aubrey's then-husband Ilya Salkind and his father Alexander Salkind. While at MGM, Thaxter married James T. Aubrey, Jr., who later became president of CBS-TV and MGM. They divorced in 1962. They had two children: Skye Aubrey, an actress; and James Aubrey. She later married Gilbert Lea, they remained together until his death in 2008. Thaxter died on August 14, 2012, in Longwood, Florida, after an eight year battle with Alzheimer's disease. She is buried at Saint Mary the Virgin Cemetery, in Falmouth, Maine.