The Story of Hollywood "B" Actress, Marie Windsor

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Marie Windsor, 1919-2000.

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Marie Windsor (born Emily Marie Bertelsen; December 11, 1919 – December 10, 2000) was an American actress known for her femme fatale characters in the classic film noir features Force of Evil, The Narrow Margin and The Killing. Windsor's height (5'9", 175 cm) created problems for her in scenes with all but the tallest actors. She was the female lead in so many B movies that she became dubbed the "Queen" of the genre.

Early years ~

Windsor was born in 1919 in Marysvale, Utah, the daughter of Lane Joseph and Etta Marie "Long" Bertelsen . She graduated from Marysvale High School in 1934, doing a "musical reading" as part of the graduation exercises. She attended Brigham Young University, where she participated in dramatic productions. She was described in a 1939 newspaper article as "an accomplished athlete ... expert as a dancer, swimmer, horsewoman, and plays golf, tennis and skis."

In 1939, Windsor was chosen from a group of 81 contestants to be queen of Covered Wagon Days in Salt Lake City, Utah. She was unofficially appointed "Miss Utah of 1939" by her hometown’s Chamber of Commerce, and trained for the stage under Hollywood actress and coach Maria Ouspenskaya. (Maria played the gypsy in the original Wolf Man film).

Voluptuous and leggy, but unusually tall (5'9") for a starlet of her generation, Windsor felt that she was handicapped when playing opposite actors of average stature (claiming she had to progressively bend at the knees walking across the room in scene with John Garfield). As she later recalled, a production with the 6’5” Forrest Tucker as co-star made her happy with finally getting a male lead who was her 'own size'.

In later years, thanks to her early screen success, Windsor was able to pursue her studies more extensively, primarily with Stella Adler and also at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute.

Stella Adler.

Windsor worked in radio in Salt Lake City before moving to California. In California, she worked as a model for glamor photographer Paul Hesse.

Stage ~

In 1940, after her move to Hollywood and entering Ouspenskaya's drama school, she appeared in the play Forty Thousand Smiths, her first use of the stage name "Marie Windsor". The next year she appeared in Once in a Lifetime at the Pasadena Playhouse. She also played a villain in a New York production of Follow the Girls. Years later, in the 1980s, she returned to the stage. In 1986, Marie Windsor played Francis Carson in the premiere of The Bar Off Melrose by Oliver Hailey et al.

Posters for the plays, Once In A Lifetime and Follow The Girls.

Film ~

After working for several years as a telephone operator, a stage and radio actress, and a bit part and extra player in films, Windsor began playing feature parts on the big screen in 1947.

Her first film contract, with Warner Bros. in 1942, resulted from her writing jokes and submitting them to Jack Benny. Windsor said she submitted the gags under the name M.E. Windsor "because I was afraid he might be prejudiced against a woman gag writer". When Benny finally met Windsor, "he was stunned by her good looks" and had a producer sign her to a contract. After a tenure with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in which the studio "signed her, put her in two small roles and then promptly forgot her", she signed a seven-year contract in 1948 with Enterprise Productions.

Jack Benny.

The actress' first memorable role in 1948 was with John Garfield in Force of Evil playing seductress Edna Tucker. She had roles in numerous 1950s film noirs, notably The Sniper, The Narrow Margin, City That Never Sleeps, and the Stanley Kubrick heist film, The Killing, in which she played Elisha Cook, Jr.'s, scheming wife. She also made her first foray into science fiction with the release of Cat-Women of the Moon (1953). Windsor co-starred with Randolph Scott in The Bounty Hunter (1954).

Elisha Cook Jr. as George Peatty with Marie Windsor as his wife Sherry, in a still from the 1956 film "The Killing," directed by Stanley Kubrick for United Artists. (United Artists/Archive Photos/Getty Images).

Television ~

Later, Windsor moved to television. She appeared as "The Mutton Puncher" in season 3 of Cheyenne, in 1957. She appeared in 1954 as Belle Starr in the premiere episode of Stories of the Century. In 1962, she played Ann Jesse, a woman dying in childbirth, in the episode "The Wanted Man" of Lawman. Windsor appeared in the first season of Barnaby Jones; episode "Twenty Million Alibis" (May 5, 1973).

Windsor worked consistently through the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. She appeared on programs such as Cheyenne, Bat Masterson, Bonanza, Tales of Wells Fargo, Yancy Derringer, 77 Sunset Strip, Maverick (in the 1957 episode titled "The Quick and the Dead" with James Garner and Gerald Mohr as Doc Holliday) and (in the 1962 episode "Epitaph for a Gambler" with Jack Kelly), The Red Skelton Hour, Hawaiian Eye, Perry Mason, Bourbon Street Beat, The F.B.I., The Incredible Hulk, Rawhide, Adam-12, Mannix, Charlie's Angels, General Hospital, Salem's Lot, and Murder, She Wrote. Windsor remained on screen once or so annually up to the 1990s, playing her final role and going into retirement in 1991 at the age of 72.

Recognition ~

Windsor has a star at 1549 N. Vine Street in the Motion Pictures section of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It was dedicated January 19, 1983.

In 1987, Windsor received the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for best actress for her work in The Bar Off Melrose. She also received the Ralph Morgan Award from the Screen Actors Guild for her service on the organization's board of directors.

Personal life ~

Windsor was married briefly to bandleader Ted Steele. They were wed April 21, 1946, in Marysvale, Utah. They divorced that same year (an item in a 1953 newspaper column says that the marriage was ended by annulment, not divorce).

Ted Steele. Marie's first husband.

In July 1950, newspaper columnist Louella Parsons reported, "Marie Windsor has set her marriage to Alex Lunciman, a Beverly Hills stock broker, for October".

She married realtor Jack Hupp, a member of the 1936 U.S. Olympic basketball team. Hupp had his own family connection with show business; he was the son of actor Earle Rodney. Hupp, with whom Windsor had a son, Richard Rodney, was inducted posthumously into the University of Southern California (USC) Athletic Hall of Fame in 2007. Hupp had a son, Chris, from a prior marriage.

Marie with second husband, Jack Hupp.

Windsor was politically conservative, a member of the Screen Actors Guild, and supportive of the Motion Picture and Television Fund. A Republican, she supported Dwight Eisenhower's campaign in the 1952 presidential election.

After her acting career ended, Windsor became a painter and sculptor. Windsor was also a lifelong member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Death ~

Windsor died of congestive heart failure on December 10, 2000, the day before her 81st birthday. She is interred with Hupp in her native Marysvale, Utah, at Mountain View Cemetery.

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FROM:

Marie Windsor, '50s femme fatale and John Wayne co-star, was warned to repent for playing evil ~

Hollywood's 'Queen of the B's' is the subject of a book written by Denise Noe titled 'A Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing: The Life of Marie Windsor'

By Stephanie Nolasco Fox News, Published March 22, 2023 7:00am EDT

(SEE LINK AT END OF THIS BLOG TO BUY A COPY OF THIS BOOK)

Marie Windsor was so convincing at playing bad that many people thought the devil would get her.

The actress, who was crowned "Queen of the B’s" for starring in numerous film noirs, Westerns and low-budget flicks, is now the subject of a book recently written by Denise Noe titled "A Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing: The Life of Marie Windsor." The biography, written with the blessing of Windsor’s son Rick Hupp, explores Windsor’s humble beginnings in Utah, her rise in Hollywood and how she was unlike the villains she famously played on-screen.

Windsor passed away in 2000 at age 80.

"Marie Windsor contributed so very much to the entertainment industry," Noe told Fox News Digital. "She didn’t have a messy private life, but she still had a very interesting life. She did a lot of important movies. And I was surprised that no one had written a biography on her yet. Before I decided to write the book, I wanted to make sure that her son would cooperate. I also talked to some people who worked with Marie – some are no longer with us – but they gave wonderful accounts of her life. I felt it was important to share."

"Part of the reason why she isn’t as well known today was that she was the ‘Queen of the B’s,’" Noe shared. "She wasn't often in A-list movies. She also wasn’t in the tabloids – she did not have the sensational private life that some other stars had at the time. The reason why the title is ‘A Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing’ is because she was a very ethical, kind person who often played very evil characters."

Windsor’s story starts in Marysvale, Utah, a small farming community where she was born Emily Marie Bertelsen in 1919. At age 11, her parents would drive 30 miles over dirt roads just so she could take acting lessons. After winning two local beauty pageants and focusing on drama at Brigham Young University, Windsor’s parents drove their daughter to Hollywood, where she studied with no-nonsense acting instructor Maria Ouspenskaya.

During the day, Windsor was at the Hollywood Studio Club, whose residents included Marilyn Monroe and Donna Reed. At night, she worked as a cigarette girl at the Mocambo nightclub. While she made her film debut in 1941’s "All-American Coed," it wouldn’t be until the ‘50s that Windsor began skyrocketing to fame. She both terrified and delighted audiences in subsequent roles as "the blunt, beautiful dame with the bedroom eyes who was rotten to the core and didn’t care who knew it," The New York Times reported.

It turned out many, to her horror, insisted Windsor was the real deal.

"People would send her actual copies of the Bible where they underlined the sins her characters had committed," Noe explained. "Sometimes they would just send her Bible verses with letters warning her to repent, or she would go to hell. It may sound kind of funny today that these people couldn't tell the distinction between the character and the performer, but she was really scared. She was very disturbed and frightened by what these letters had to say and how they were written. She had to turn some of those materials over to the police because people were confusing her for being the gangster moll, the gunslinger, this evil femme fatale."

Marie in Narrow Margin 1952.

"The fact that people were sending Bibles to her and underlining what they felt she had done wrong really frightened her," Noe continued. "It indicated that the person was seeing her as this evil person. But Marie wasn’t like any of the characters she played. Luckily, she wasn’t the victim of any stalkers."

Windsor once told Classic Images, a film magazine: "Fans would send me Bibles with specific verses underscored and accompanied by handwritten warnings that the devil would get me and I’d go to hell if I didn’t reform."

Windsor was concerned about being typecast as "a dragon lady," which compelled her to go under the knife.

"It was one of the reasons she had a nose job," said Noe. "It wasn’t that much of a nose job – it was really to remove a bump on her nose. But she thought this will help her get more sympathetic parts. She would later say that she sometimes regretted getting that nose job because she thought maybe it had done the opposite. But the thing about Marie is that she had very large eyes that looked sort of predatory with a very sensual mouth. She was tall – at 5 foot 9, she would tower over her male co-stars. And those were some of the things that made her a femme fatale, a gunslinger. It wouldn’t be until later that she played maternal roles or the loving housewife."

There was one star she quickly impressed on set – John Wayne. They did three films together: 1949’s "The Fighting Kentuckian," 1953’s "Trouble Along the Way" and 1973’s "Cahill U.S. Marshal."

John Wayne and Marie Windsor on the set of 'Cahill U.S. Marshal,' directed by Andrew V. McLaglen, on Nov. 29, 1972, in Los Angeles, Ca.

"She liked John Wayne," said Noe. "She always said he was really nice to work with. She really enjoyed working with him. And I think that one of the reasons she got so many Western parts was that she had experience as a horsewoman. She had ridden horses during her upbringing in Utah. She was comfortable on a horse and knew how to twirl a gun, but also appeared ultra feminine and desirable. She described how John Wayne played a version of himself, so his persona was pretty close to him as a person."

"She did remark that John Garfield and George Raft were the only two male actors she worked with who weren’t bothered by the fact she was taller than they were," Noe pointed out. "She complimented them for being secure enough that they weren’t bothered by it. Her height was often disguised in films. She would do special tricks, like dancing with her knees bent in a scene, so she wasn’t towering over her male co-star."

Windsor also worked with a young Stanley Kubrick in 1956’s "The Killing."

"She loved Stanley Kubrick," said Noe. "She found him to be very kind, patient and sensitive. She really enjoyed working with him. She respected him as a director who had an eye for detail. She thought he was just brilliant. And he respected her greatly."

But Windsor’s greatest role was that of mom. At one point, she put her Hollywood career on hold to completely devote herself to motherhood.

"She loved it," Noe explained. "She went back to taking on roles pretty soon, but all the evidence suggests that she had a successful home life. She loved being a homemaker and taking care of her son. She was also very involved in raising her stepson. Her son told me she always wanted to be in the kitchen making meals for them. She thrived in her domestic life."

Windsor led a successful acting career and served as a director for the Screen Actors Guild for 25 years. She also made guest appearances on more than 100 TV shows, including ''Gunsmoke'' and ''Murder, She Wrote," The New York Times reported. But during her final years, she was at peace as a homemaker and painter.

"Marie Windsor was an excellent femme fatale, but if you study her work, you can’t help but be amazed by her versatility," said Noe. "She would transform herself into these characters. And yet, she was incredibly kind and supportive on set. I think the stars of today can learn so much from her. I hope after this book, people will think more of her when they think of old Hollywood."

Stephanie Nolasco covers entertainment at Foxnews.com.

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Marie Windsor, circa 1950, resided at the Hollywood Studio Club, whose residents included Marilyn Monroe and Donna Reed. (Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images).

Actresses Chili Williams, left, and Marie Windsor prepare a spaghetti dish. They co-starred in the 1950 film 'Frenchie.'

Publicity photo of Marie Windsor for the United Artists feature The Killing.

Marie Windsor in the United Artists feature The Killing.

Marie Windsor attends the Sixth Annual Golden Boot Awards on Aug. 19, 1988, at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Westwood, California. She was married to actor Jack Hupp from 1954 until her death in 2000. (Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images).