Cathy Downs

Cast

Born

March 3, 1926 · Port Jefferson, Long Island, New York, USA

Died

December 8, 1976

Birth name

Catherine Matilda Downs

A pleasant, attractive leading lady, Cathy Downs was an "outdoors type" who worked as a model before she became a Fox contract player in 1944. In the late 1940s she was being groomed for major success -- e.g., she played the title role in John Ford's My Darling Clementine (1946) -- but most of her subsequent movie roles were in low-budget westerns, action and horror pictures. She was married to Joe Kirkwood Jr., an actor and producer who played Joe Palooka in a series of low-budget 1940-'50s films. They acted together in a short-lived TV series The Joe Palooka Story (1954). She is well-regarded in science-fiction fan circles as a memorable heroine of 1950s sci-fi flicks.