Irish McCalla
Irish McCalla ; actually Nellie Elizabeth McCalla (born December 25, 1928 in Pawnee City , Nebraska , † February 1, 2002 in Tucson , Arizona ) was an American actress , model and painter .
life and career
McCalla grew up with seven siblings, her father worked as a butcher. Between 1939 and 1942, the family moved three times and McCalla moved, at the age of 17, with some of her siblings to Southern California where she worked as a waitress and at an aircraft manufacturer. In 1951 she married the insurance salesman Patrick McIntyre and gave birth to two sons. The marriage lasted until 1957.
After she was approached by a photographer asking to be a Miss Navy Day model, she worked as a pin-up girl and photo model. She was the model for the pin-up artist Alberto Vargas and is therefore also one of the Varga girls . It has graced the cover of numerous magazines such as Eve (1950), People Today (1954), Fabulous Females (1955) and Blighty (1957).
In 1952 she was cast in a minor supporting role in the film River Goddesses . Her national breakthrough came when she took on the lead role in the TV series Sheena - Queen of the Jungle in 1955 . Based on a cartoon character from 1937, she played Sheena , who grew up as an orphan in the African jungle and can talk to animals. As a female counterpart to Tarzan , she presents herself with a curvaceous figure and in a tight leopard skin bikini . A total of 26 episodes were filmed from 1955 to 1956. She later said of her role: "I couldn't act, but I could swing through the trees".
After her divorce in 1957, she married the British actor Patrick Horgan in 1958, and they divorced in 1963. McCalla starred in several feature films and television series after Sheena . In later years she devoted herself increasingly to painting and became a member of the Woman Artists of the American West . Some of her work has been exhibited at the Los Angeles Museum of Arts and Sciences . She died of a stroke in 2002 .
Irish McCalla has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (1722 Vine Street).
Filmography
Film appearances
- 1952: River Goddesses
- 1958: She Demons
- 1959: The Beat Generation
- 1959: Five Gates to Hell
- 1960: Five Bold Women
- 1962: Hands of a Stranger
Television appearances
- 1955-1956: Sheena: Queen of the Jungle
- 1957: The Steve Allen Show
- 1959: Disneyland '59
- 1963: Have Gun - Will Travel
literature
- Bill Black: Tv's Sheena Irish McCalla . AC Comics / Paragon Press, 1992, ISBN 0-685-60576-0 .
Web links
- Irish McCalla in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Los Angeles Times
- javasbachelorpad.com
- Walk of Fame
- AskART- The Artists' Bluebook
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | McCalla, Irish |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | McCalla, Nellie Elizabeth |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | US-american actress |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 25, 1928 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Pawnee City , Nebraska , United States |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 1, 2002 |
| Place of death | Tucson , Arizona , United States |