Gloria Winters

 Gloria Winters (November 28, 1931 – August 14, 2010)

She is best remembered as Penny King from the 1950s television series "Sky King". Raised in Los Angeles, she got her start in show business early, appearing in the 1932 "Virtue", which starred Carole Lombard. She had some other small roles as a child, then beginning in the late 1940s was seen in around 20 Hollywood westerns including "Driftwood" (1947) and "The Lawless" (1950); in 1949 and 1950, she was Babs Riley in the first television version of "The Life of Riley", with Jackie Gleason in the title role. Through the 1950s, she was seen on a number of small screen shows, among them "The Lone Ranger", "The Gene Autry Show" (on which she got a chance to sing), "The Jack Benny Show", "Richard Diamond Private Detective", and "Death Valley Days". Winters' extended run as Sky King's niece Penny began in 1951 and continued through 1959, with syndication following for some time. Married to sound engineer Dean Vernon, she retired from show business following a 1960 appearance on "The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp" and in 1964 published "Penny's Guide to Teen-Age Charm and Popularity", a young girls' etiquette book. Winters died in 2010 at age 78 from pneumonia. She was cremated, and her ashes interred with her husband at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego.