Introduction
Leslie Brooks (July 13, 1922 – July 1, 2011) was an American film actress, model and dancer.
Born in Lincoln, Nebraska as Virginia Gettman, her parents brought her to Southern California at an early age, where around 1940 she started work as a photographic model. At the beginning of her showbiz career she appeared as Lorraine Gettman.
As Leslie Brooks, she began appearing in movie bit roles for Columbia in 1941. Brooks started landing more sizable parts in such movies as Nine Girls (1944), Cover Girl (1944), and the lead in the film noir classic Blonde Ice (1948). She retired from films in 1949, but returned to make one last film in 1971.
Personal life
Brooks was married twice and had four daughters. She wed her first husband, actor Donald Anthony Shay, January 6, 1945, in Beverly Hills, California.
Death
Brooks died on July 1, 2011 at the age of 88 in Sherman Oaks, California.
Selected filmography
- Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) as Chorus Girl in "Little Johnny Jones" (uncredited)
- You Were Never Lovelier (1942) as Cecy Acuña
- Cover Girl (1944) as Maurine Martin
- Tonight and Every Night (1945) as Angela
- The Secret of The Whistler (1946) as Kay Morrell
- Romance on the High Seas (1948) as Miss Medwick
- Blonde Ice (1948) as Claire Cummings Hanneman
- Hollow Triumph (1948) as Virginia Taylor