Marie Windsor

 Marie Windsor (December 11, 1919 – December 10, 2000), born as Emily Marie Bertelsen.

In 1939, Windsor was chosen from a group of 81 contestants to be queen of Covered Wagon Days in Salt Lake City, Utah. She was unofficially appointed "Miss Utah of 1939" by her hometown Chamber of Commerce, and trained for the stage under famed Hollywood actress and coach Maria Ouspenskaya. Windsor worked in radio in Salt Lake City before she moved to California. After working for several years as a telephone operator, a stage and radio actress, and a bit and extra player in films, Windsor began playing feature parts on the big screen in 1947. Her first film contract, with Warner Bros. in 1942, resulted from her writing jokes and submitting them to Jack Benny. Windsor said she submitted the gags under the name M.E. Windsor "because I was afraid he might be prejudiced against a woman gag writer." When Benny finally met Windsor, "he was stunned by her good looks" and had a producer sign her to a contract. After a tenure with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in which the studio "signed her, put her in two small roles and then promptly forgot her", she signed a seven-year contract with The Enterprise Studios in 1948. The 5'9" actress's first memorable role was in 1948 opposite John Garfield in Force of Evil playing seductress Edna Tucker. She had roles in numerous 1950s film noirs, notably The Sniper, The Narrow Margin, City That Never Sleeps, and Stanley Kubrick's heist movie, The Killing, in which she played Elisha Cook Jr.'s scheming wife.

She also made a foray into science fiction with the 1953 release of Cat-Women of the Moon. Windsor worked consistently on television through the '60s and '70s, and remained on screen once or so annually clear up to the 1990s, playing her final role at 72 in 1991. Windsor died of congestive heart failure on December 10, 2000—one day before her 81st birthday. She is interred with husband Jack Hupp at Mountainview Cemetery in Marysvale, Utah.