Elaine Devry (born Thelma Elaine Mahnken, January 10, 1930 – September 20, 2023) was an American actress.
Early life
Thelma Elaine Mahnken was born on January 10, 1930, to Fred P. and Hortense Mahnken, in Compton, California, where she was raised.[1][2] She has a brother Jack and Jeff, Jeff, was three years her senior.[3] She began to model at age fifteen.[3] She graduated from Compton High School and later attended Compton Junior College,[3] where she was homecoming queen.[4]
After marrying her high school boyfriend, Dan Ducich, in 1948, the couple lived in Butte, Montana, until their 1952 divorce, upon which Devry returned to California, working as a carhop at the Dolores Drive-In on Wilshire Boulevard.[3]
Career
Originally billed as Elaine Davis, her early acting roles included her first film, The Atomic Kid, in which she and Rooney co-starred.[5] She appeared in films such as China Doll (1958) and A Guide for the Married Man (1967). Devry made three guest appearances on Perry Mason, including the title role of defendant Janice Wainwright in the 1962 episode "The Case of the Shapely Shadow." That same year, she appeared with actor John Clarke in a commercial for Kool cigarettes.
Devry married Dan Ducich, her high school boyfriend, in Butte, Montana, in September 1948.[3] The following year, Ducich was convicted of multiple robberies in Los Angeles and sentenced to five years' probation.[3] The couple resided in Butte, but divorced in 1952. She also had a six-year marriage[3] to actor Mickey Rooney, whom she met in 1952, and married on November 15, 1952, in Las Vegas.[5] The couple had a son and a daughter and divorced in 1958.[6] Speaking in 1967, Devry said that although she liked Rooney "very much", she was still in love with her first husband, but that he did not care. She thought in time that she could "learn to love him", but that she was "young and foolish" and by the end, had enough. Following her eight years of marriage, she expressed to being "marriage shy", despite numerous proposals from other actors but that she was "afraid to take the chance". Despite claims from Rooney that she received a $125,000 mansion, a summer home and a 10-year annual $21,000 alimony in divorce settlement, she disputed the claim, saying that she instead received a $75,000 studio home with a $45,000 mortgage, a summer home and that the alimony was only $21,000 in the first year.[7]
Devry was married to actor Will J. White until his death on April 23, 1992, in Grants Pass, Oregon.[8] From 2005, Devry lived on a ranch in Oregon.[3] She died in Grants Pass on September 20, 2023, at the age of 93.[2]
