Fay Spain

'Fay Spain' (qv) was was your typical B-movie drive-in bad girl - sometimes blonde, sometimes brunette, always bodacious. A tease, a taunt, and a temptress throughout most her career, 'Fay Spain' (qv) was born in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1932, as Lona May Spain to R.C. Spain and Arminta Frances Cochran. She headed to New York where she initially found summer stock work and a bit of television exposure. One of her earliest TV appearances was not as an actress but as a contestant on _You Bet Your Life (1950)_ (qv), starring 'Groucho Marx' (qv).By 1956, this fetching starlet was winning episodic roles on the more popular shows of the day, including _Perry Mason (1957)_ (qv), _Cheyenne (1955)_ (qv) and _Gunsmoke (1955)_ (qv). She was also gaining notice on the covers of magazines. This cheesecake attention led directly to her juvenile delinquent debut in _Dragstrip Girl (1957)_ (qv) with 'John Ashley' (qv) and 'Steven Terrell' (qv), where she immediately established herself as the party girl boys are willing to race cars and fight over. Other equally low-budget films followed, with _Teenage Doll (1957)_ (qv), _The Crooked Circle (1957)_ (qv), and _The Abductors (1957)_ (qv).She made an aggressive move into higher quality films with 'Erskine Caldwell' (qv)'s best-seller _God's Little Acre (1958)_ (qv) as "Darlin' Jill", another amoral sexpot, and as 'Rod Steiger' (qv)'s moll in _Al Capone (1959)_ (qv), but then it was right back to Grade Z level work with _The Beat Generation (1959)_ (qv) co-starring 'Mamie Van Doren' (qv), _The Private Lives of Adam and Eve (1960)_ (qv) in which she tempts 'Martin Milner' (qv) with the old forbidden fruit routine, and a 1962 Italian spectacle as an evil queen trying to thwart the actions of Hercules. Although Fay made some efforts to return to TV work, her career was pretty much over by the mid-60s. One of her last roles was a bit part as a mafioso matriarch in _The Godfather: Part II (1974)_ (qv). 'Fay Spain' (qv) died of cancer at age 50 in 1983.::Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net