Virginia Mayo

Trivia of Virginia Mayo (30 November 1920 - 17 January 2005)

*She attended Soldan High School in St Louis and graduated in early 1938. Within a few months of graduation she made her professional stage debut, appearing in the chorus of the St. Louis Municipal Opera. This led to an offer from her brother-in-law, Andy Mayo, to appear with him as foil to to his pantomime horse vaudeville act which he performed with his partner, Nonnie Morton. She toured with Morton and Mayo for three years during which time she changed her name to Virginia Mayo.

*In 1941 she was chosen for the cast of a Broadway production, 'Banjo Eyes' starring top performer Eddie Cantor. It was the break she needed. Her beauty and skill were noted by a Hollywood talent scout and she was signed up to a movie contract with independent producer, Sam Goldwyn.Goldwyn gave her her movie debut in ‘Jack London’ in 1943, alongside a young Susan Hayward. The movie was not a success but it got Virginia noticed and the following year she was given a much bigger role co-starring with Bob Hope in ‘The Princess and the Pirate’.

*Mayo was once termed "the most beautiful blonde in the world"; her beauty so impressed the Sultan of Morocco that he said seeing her was "tangible proof of the existence of God.".

*She gave one of her greatest performances as Verna Jarrett the wife of gangster Cody Jarrett (acted by James Cagney) in White Heat (1949). Mayo later claimed in interviews that she was occasionally genuinely frightened by Cagney during the filming of the picture, because Cagney's acting was so realistic and natural.She also revealed in an interview that James Cagney was hiding in a different spot than where she had been told he would be during the scene when they are reunited after he's been in prison. He then deliberately missed his cue, causing her shock and fear to be real. She said for a few seconds, she was actually afraid he was going to kill her.

*Her favorite of the movies she was in was She's Working Her Way Through College (1952). Although her vocals were always dubbed, she enjoyed doing musical pictures because she got to dance. A trained dancer since the age of three, she once danced with the St. Louis Opera when she was a teenager.

*Was Paul Newman's first on-screen leading lady, in the The Silver Chalice (1954).

*Virginia Mayo appeared with Danny Kaye in five movies : Up in Arms (1944) , Wonder Man (1945) , The Kid from Brooklyn (1946), The Secret Life if Walter Mitty (1947), and A Song is Born (1948)