Ted Steele (1946; annulled) Jack Hupp (1954–2000, her death)
Children
1
Marie Windsor (born Emily Marie Bertelsen; December 11, 1919 – December 10, 2000)[1][2] 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.[3]
Early years
Windsor was born in 1919 in Marysvale, Utah, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Lane Bertelsen.[4] She graduated from Marysvale High School in 1934, doing a "musical reading" as part of the graduation exercises.[5] She attended Brigham Young University, where she participated in dramatic productions.[6][7] She was described in a 1939 newspaper article as "an accomplished athlete ... expert as a dancer, swimmer, horsewoman, and plays golf, tennis and skis."[8]
In 1939, Windsor was chosen from a group of 81 contestants[9] to be queen of Covered Wagon Days in Salt Lake City, Utah.[8] She was unofficially appointed "Miss Utah of 1939" by her hometown’s Chamber of Commerce,[10] and trained for the stage under Hollywood actress and coach Maria Ouspenskaya.[11]
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).[12] 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'.[12]
Windsor worked in radio in Salt Lake City before moving to California.[14] In California, she worked as a model for glamor photographer Paul Hesse.[15]
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".[11] The next year she appeared in Once in a Lifetime at the Pasadena Playhouse.[16] She also played a villain in a New York production of Follow the Girls.[17] Years later, in the 1980s, she returned to the stage.[18]
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.[19]
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".[14] When Benny finally met Windsor, "he was stunned by her good looks" and had a producer sign her to a contract.[14] 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.[15]
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 has a star in at 1549 N. Vine Street in the Motion Pictures section of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It was dedicated January 19, 1983.[20]
In 1987, Windsor received the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for best actress for her work in The Bar Off Melrose.[18] She also received the Ralph Morgan Award from the Screen Actors Guild for her service on the organization's board of directors.[18]
Personal life
Windsor was married briefly to bandleader Ted Steele.[17] They were wed April 21, 1946, in Marysvale, Utah.[21] They divorced that same year[18] (an item in a 1953 newspaper column says that the marriage was ended by annulment, not divorce).[22]
In July 1950, newspaper columnist Louella Parsons reported, "Marie Windsor has set her marriage to Alex Lunciman, a Beverly Hills stock broker, for October".[23]
She married realtor[3] 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.[3] 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.[1][24]
Windsor died of congestive heart failure on December 10, 2000, the day before her 81st birthday.[18] She is interred with Hupp in her native Marysvale, Utah, at Mountain View Cemetery.[citation needed]
^ abCelebrity Diss and Tell: Stars Talk About Each Other, Boze Hadleigh p. 181.
^Arkatov, Janice. "Windsor's 'Star' Label Still Intact". The Los Angeles Times. April 23, 1986; retrieved April 30, 2015. "Currently, the objects of that vitality include a son (Ricky, 23), tennis ('though lately I haven't been playing so well') and art (she's sold more than 100 of her paintings)--along with civic duties (the Thalians, John Tracy Clinic, Screen Actors Guild) and ongoing studies (Stella Adler, the Lee Strasberg Institute, Harvey Lembeck Workshop and a recent screen writing class at UCLA)."
Marie Windsor Papers. MSS 2301; 20th Century Western & Mormon Manuscripts; L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University.
