LOS ANGELES (AP) — Actress Jane Greer, a film noir star and former wife of bandleader Rudy Vallee, died Friday of complications from cancer. She was 76.
Greer, who as an icy brunette bested both Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas in the 1947 noir classic "Out of the Past," was a former beauty contestant and model who caught the eye of Hollywood after appearing in Life magazine.
She later signed with RKO after studio head Howard Hughes became smitten with her. While still a teen-ager, she married crooner Vallee in 1943. The two divorced in 1945.
View Comments
Throughout the 1940s and '50s, she appeared in "Dick Tracy, Detective," "The Prisoner of Zenda" and "Man of a Thousand Faces." Her career slowed by the mid-1950s, although she continued to act.