Film screenshot · Public domain

An American actress who spent nearly two decades on Broadway, appearing in 17 plays between 1927 and 1959 before moving to Hollywood, where she specialized in playing sophisticated, moneyed women in films including Anastasia and The Day of the Locust. She found lasting fame late in her career as Lovey Howell on Gilligan's Island, a role she reprised in television movies and cartoons for nearly twenty years afterward. Privately, she kept her real age hidden for decades and quietly managed a battle with breast cancer before her death in 1991.