Sharon Douglas (October 16, 1920 – June 18, 2016) was
an American film and radio actress, most active in the 1940s and 1950s.
The daughter of Mr. and Mrs. L.M. Rader, Douglas was born Rhoda-Nelle
Rader on October 16, 1920 in Stephens County, Oklahoma. (A newspaper
article about her high school graduation gives her first name as
Rhodanelle.) She graduated from Las Cruces Union High School in Las
Cruces, New Mexico.
She moved to Hollywood in 1939, struck up a
friendship with Hedda Hopper, and became her protégé, with regular
appearances on Hopper's popular 1940s radio show. Her stage name was
chosen in tribute to her mother's Scottish ancestry. Hopper had NBC hire
Douglas to play Lana Turner in a radio biography of her early life, and
later introduced her to the RKO movie mogul Howard Hughes, who took her
personally under his wing, pitching her as a rival to Jane Greer.
Douglas's earliest roles in film were bit parts, but in 1942 was
offered a lead role in A Gentleman After Dark, opposite Brian Donlevy.
Other good parts followed, but radio was where Douglas "really found her
métier", in long-running serials such as 1944's The Gallant Heart, and
the 132-week World War II run of The Life of Riley, starring William
Bendix and a "monumental success". She portrayed Babs, Riley's daughter,
in the program.
Other roles on television included Bobby's
girlfriend in The Remarkable Miss Tuttle, Millie Anderson in A Day in
the Life of Dennis Day, :94 Mabel in Joan Davis Time, :176 Virginia Brickel in My Mother's Husband, :247 and Terry Burton in The Second Mrs.
Burton. :299 Her other work in radio included The Abbott and Costello
Show.
On July 30, 1946, Douglas married Lebanese-born producer
Edward Nassour in Hollywood, California. They had four children
together. In 1962, he committed suicide he committed suicide by stabbing himself in the heart with a steak knife. Douglas had two
other short marriages, both of which ended in divorce.
Douglas
died on June 18, 2016, aged 95. The location was not disclosed. She
was survived by her children. |
