Cathy Downs

A pleasant, attractive leading lady, 'Cathy Downs' (qv) was an "outdoors type" who worked as a model before she became a Fox contract player in 1944. In the late 1940s she was being groomed for major success -- e.g., she played the title role in 'John Ford' (qv)'s _My Darling Clementine (1946)_ (qv) -- but most of her subsequent movie roles were in low-budget westerns, action and horror pictures. She was married to 'Joe Kirkwood Jr.' (qv), an actor and producer who played Joe Palooka in a series of low-budget 1940-'50s films. They acted together in a short-lived TV series _The Joe Palooka Story (1954)_ (qv). She is well-regarded in science-fiction fan circles as a memorable heroine of 1950s sci-fi flicks.::Jeff Frentzen <frentzen@newsguy.com>