Kay Harris (August 18, 1919 – October 23, 1971) was an American

actress An actor (masculine/gender-neutral), or actress (feminine), is a person who portrays a character in a production. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. ...

who starred in eight films during the 1940s, including the title role in ''

Tillie the Toiler ''Tillie the Toiler'' is a newspaper comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech ballo ...

''. Harris was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. James L. Harris. In 1937 she graduated from Elkhorn High School in Wisconsin, where she had been active in dramatics. She acted in summer stock theater for two years after graduation. She obtained a job at radio station

WSAI WSAI (1360 AM broadcasting, AM) is a radio station in Cincinnati, Ohio. Owned and operated by iHeartMedia, its studios, as well as those of iHeartMedia's other Cincinnati stations, are in the Towers of Kenwood building next to I-71 in the Kenwo ...

in Cincinnati, Ohio. In Cincinnati she met

Penny Singleton Penny Singleton (born Mariana Dorothy McNulty, September 15, 1908 – November 12, 2003) was an American actress and labor leader. During her six decade career on stage, screen, radio and television, Singleton appeared as the comic-strip he ...

, whose husband urged Harris to take a screen test in Hollywood. She was married to Army aviator Charles A. Peters until January 24, 1942, when they were divorced. On that same day she married

cinematographer The cinematographer or director of photography (sometimes shortened to DP or DOP) is the person responsible for the recording of a film, television production, music video or other live-action piece. The cinematographer is the chief of the camera ...

Henry Freulich. In January 1943, they separated, and Harris said that she planned to get a divorce.

Filmography

* ''

'' (1941) * '' Parachute Nurse'' (1942) * ''

Lucky Legs ''Lucky Legs'' is a 1942 American comedy film directed by Charles Barton and written by Stanley Rubin and Jack Hartfield. The film stars Jinx Falkenburg, Leslie Brooks, Kay Harris, Russell Hayden, Elizabeth Patterson and William Wright. The ...

'' (1942) * ''

Sabotage Squad ''Sabotage Squad'' is a 1942 American action film directed by Lew Landers and written by Bernice Petkere, Wallace Sullivan and David Silverstein. The film stars Bruce Bennett, Kay Harris, Edward Norris, Sidney Blackmer, Don Beddoe and John Tyrr ...

'' (1942) * ''

Smith of Minnesota ''Smith of Minnesota'' is a 1942 American drama film directed by Lew Landers and written by Robert Hardy Andrews. The film stars Bruce Smith, Arline Judge, Warren Ashe, Don Beddoe, Kay Harris and Robert Kellard. The film was released on October ...

'' (1942) * '' The Spirit of Stanford'' (1942) * '' Robin Hood of the Range'' (1943) * '' The Fighting Buckaroo'' (1943)

References

Bibliography

* Blottner, Gene. ''Columbia Pictures Movie Series, 1926-1955: The Harry Cohn Years''. McFarland, 2011.

External links

* 1919 births 1971 deaths American film actresses People from Elkhorn, Wisconsin Actresses from Wisconsin 20th-century American actresses {{US-film-actor-1910s-stub