Mara Corday was born Marilyn Joan Watts on January 3 1930 in Santa Monica, California. When she was young she worked as an usherette at the Mayan Theatre in Los Angeles. She was 17 years old when she was hired by the Earl Carroll Theatre on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. She started out as a showgirl there before going on to play in sketches with the legendary Pinky Lee. She received work as a photographer's model. This led to her film debut in an uncredited role in Two Tickets to Broadway in 1951.
Marilyn Watts took her stage name "Mara Corday" from two sources. "Mara" was a nickname bestowed upon her by a bongo player when she was working at the Mayan Theatre as an usherette. She took "Corday" from the brand of perfume, which is still being made today.
In the Fifties, Mara Corday appeared in the movies Sea Tiger (1952), Son of Ali Baba (1952), Toughest Man in Arizona (1952), The Lady Wants Mink (1953), Problem Girls (1953), Tarzan and the She-Devil (1953), Sweethearts on Parade (1953), Money from Home (1953), Yankee Pasha (1954), Playgirl (1954), Drums Across the River (1954), Francis Joins the WACs (1954), Dawn at Socorro (1954), So This is Paris (1954), Man Without a Star (1954), The Man from Bitter Ridge (1955), and Foxfire (1955).
It was in 1955 that she starred as lab assistant Stephanie Clayton in Tarantula. It would not be the last giant monster in which she appeared, as she also appeared in The Giant Claw (1957) and The Black Scorpion (1957). For the remainder of the Fifties she appeared in the movies Raw Edge (1956), A Day of Fury (1956), Naked Gun (1956), The Quiet Gun (1957), Undersea Girl (1957), and Girls on the Loose (1958). She made her television debut i 1952 in episodes of Craig Kennedy, Criminologist. She appeared on the shows The Adventures of Kit Carson, Mr. & Mrs. North, Matinee Theatre, Combat Sergeant, The Restless Gun, Peter Gunn, Tales of Wells Fargo, The Man from Blackhawk, Adventures in Paradise, and Laramie. Throughout the Fifties Mara Corday was a popular pinup girl in men's magazines. She appeared in the October 1958 issue of Playboy as its Playmate that month.
In the Sixties Mara Corday guest starred on Surfside 6 and starred in the failed TV pilot Cabana 54. Afterwards she retired to devote herself to her family. It was after her husband (Richard Long of The Big Valley and Nanny & the Professor fame) died in 1974 from a heart attack that she returned to the screen a few more times. A long time friend of Clint Eastwood, she appeared in the Dirty Harry movies The Gauntlet (1977) and Sudden Impact (1983), as well as his films Pink Cadillac (1989) and The Rookie (1990). In 1976 she guest starred on the TV show Joe Forrester.
Mara Corday was as talented as she was beautiful. Even when a movie's premise might not be particularly believable, she was always convincing. She did a fine job playing Stephanie (nicknamed "Steve") in Tarantula. Even as ludicrous as The Giant Claw was, Mara Corday still gave a convincing performance as mathematician Sally Caldwell. In her Westerns she played everything from a shepherdess to saloon girls, and did gave good performances in all of them. Even in small roles, such as the waitress taken hostage in Sudden Impact, Mara Corday did well. She was a good on television as she was in movies, playing the wife of a wanted murderer on Wanted: Dead or Alive, a blackmailer on Peter Gunn, and a woman in the middle of a land feud in one of her episodes of The Adventures of Kit Carson. Mara Corday was always a pleasure to see on screen and she was never disappointing, even when a particular movie may not have been very good.
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