The Centenary of Rhonda Fleming's Birth

Actress Rhonda Fleming was born Marilyn Louis 100 years ago on this date in Hollywood, California. She would become known as the "Queen of Technicolor" because of the many Technicolor swashbucklers and Westerns in which she appeared.  A classic beauty with red hair and green eyes, she certainly photographed well in colour. Rhonda Fleming died in 2020 at the age of 97, and I eulogized her on that occasion (you can read my post there). With that in mind, I will leave you with pictures from throughout her career.

Rhonda Fleming's first substantial movie role was in Alfred Hitchcock's movie Spellbound (1945). She played Mary Carmichael, a patient at the mental hospital Green Manors.

Although Rhonda Fleming is well known for her roles in Technicolor movies, she also appeared in film noirs, including one of the greatest of all time. In Out of the Past (1947) she played Meta Carson, the secretary of Leonard Eels (Ken Niles), a corrupt lawyer in the employ of villain Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas). Here she is with Robert Mitchum.

The musical comedy A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1949) was one of the Technicolor films in which Rhonda Fleming starred. She played Alisande la Carteloise, the love interest of Hank Martin (Bing Crosby).

The Golden Hawk (1952) was one of the Technicolor swashbucklers in which Rhonda Fleming appeared. In the film she played Captain Rouge, a female pirate, a rival of the movie's protagonist, the pirate Kit "The Hawk" Gerardo (Sterling Hayden).

Rhonda Fleming appeared in several Westerns, among them Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957). She played Laura Denbow, the love interest of Wyatt Earp (Burt Lancaster).

Rhonda Fleming's last feature film appearance was in The Nude Bomb (1980), which was very loosely based on the TV series Get Smart (1965-1970). In the film she played Edith Von Secondberg, a fashion designer and the second wife of scientist Nino Salvatori Sebastiani (Vittorio Gassman), an agent of KAOS.

Rhonda Fleming went into semi-retirement in 1960, so that she only had a few movie and television credits following that year. She had made a good deal of money through investments in real estate. Her final appearance was in the short "Waiting for the Wind" (1991), in which she appeared with her Out of the Past co-star Robert Mitchum.