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Back in the silent days, sex goddesses usually came in the form of dark-haired vamps like Theda Bara, Nita Naldi, Pola Negri and Louise Brooks. Blonde bombshell madness wouldn’t invade Hollywood until the arrival of Jean Harlow in Platinum Blonde (1931). Who can forget the brief, meteoric rise of this wisecracking vamp, whose hair color became tantamount to the dames she portrayed on film?
Variations of Harlow’s free-wheeling, predatory blondes quickly followed—faithless Marlene Dietrich toying with men’s hearts in Blonde Venus (1932); saucy Mae West strutting her right stuff in She Done Him Wrong (1933); good-time gal Thelma Todd committing light-hearted vamping in Horse Feathers (1932); impish gold-digger Carole Lombard digging her claws in The Gay Bride (1934); scheming Barbara Stanwyck making a complete dupe out of Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity (1944); manipulating mankiller Lana Turner causing instant body heat with John Garfield in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946); and smart “dumb blonde” Judy Holliday lending her inimitable comic hustle in the Oscar-winning Born Yesterday (1950). They and others continued to popularize the formidable blonde vs. brawn trend throughout the 1930s and World War II era.
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By the 1950s, Hollywood had become saturated with platinum potentials, none more prevalent and pedestal worthy than the legendary gentlemen-prefer-blonde Marilyn Monroe, whose skirt-blowing subway gimmick in The Seven Year Itch (1955) reached iconic heights. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and an increasingly temperamental and unreliable Marilyn found numerous bottle blonde clones suddenly nipping at her (high) heels. No one, however, could or would threaten the complete MM package and, 60 years later, her mythic status is unsurpassed.
Many did try. Mysterious Kim Novak triggered an obsessed James Stewart to challenge his own phobia in Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958); Jayne Mansfield’s va-va-voom voluptuousness caused milk bottles to burst in The Girl Can’t Help It (1955); Clark Gable’s nightclub twist Mamie Van Doren shook her assets efficaciously to “The Girl Who Invented Rock and Roll” in Teacher’s Pet (1958); childlike Carroll Baker sucked her thumb to sexy stardom in Baby Doll (1956); Sheree North shimmied to national attention in How to Be Very, Very Popular (1955); and poor, aging Hugo Haas never would learn as he was repeatedly tortured by the tawdry temptations of Cleo Moore in Strange Fascination (1952), Thy Neighbor’s Wife (1953), One Girl’s Confession (1953), The Other Woman (1954) and Bait (1954).
While some 1650s peroxide pretties like Brigitte Bardot, Martine Carol, Diana Dors, Belinda Lee, Monique Van Vooren, Greta Thyssen and Anita Ekberg scored overseas attention, peripheral enticers back home included Mari Blanchard, Barbara Payton, Merry Anders, Adele Jergens, Barbara Nichols, Dorothy Provine, Yvette Vickers, Joyce Jameson, Joi Lansing, Carol Ohmart, and Sandra Giles. There is one other siren in this latter spicy menagerie that merits special attention—the statuesque Fox and Universal contract player Kathleen Hughes, who went on to develop quite a “bad girl” persona for herself.
Kathleen (“Kathy” to her friends) is best recalled as a tantalizing blonde femme fatale of steamy drama. Her showiest of showcases was her third-billed role as bit part actress Paula Ranier who, in ruthless pursuit of stardom, taunts, teases and torments both casting agent/researcher Edward G. Robinson and scriptwriter John Forsythe in the Universal film noir The Glass Web (1953). While critic Bosley Crowther of the New York Times, gave the film a somewhat chilly reception, he did single out the heated presence of Ms. Hughes: “Kathleen Hughes, who plays the blonde number, makes a dainty dish of poison.” The British magazine Picturegoer also gave her a pleasing write-up: “Kathleen Hughes brings a lively flamboyance to the brief, but telling, role of the conniving victim.”
In addition, Kathleen’s stunning beauty helped boost the box office intake of the sci-fi cult classic It Came from Outer Space (1953), Universal’s initial entry into the world of 3-D. Though barely in the film, the front-and-center allure of a “terrorized” Kathleen Hughes in news ads, lobby cards and publicity stills left a lasting, lusty impression. It was not uncommon at the time for producers to promote their movies using provocative blondes accompanied by torrid bylines. In more cases than not, such promising hints were seldom delivered. According to author Richard Koper, in his all-inclusive 2010 illustrated book Fifties Blondes: Sexbombs, Sirens, Bad Girls and Teen Queens, thanks to her 3-D exposure in both It Came from Outer Space and The Glass Web, Kathleen was generously promoted as “The 3-D Girl” by the Manhattan Film Projectionists’ Union, with “3-D” standing for “devastating, delightful and delicious!”
The actress, who reveled in playing fatal beauties, had the assured makings of a star but, regrettably, was unable to segue from “B” and “C” to “A” level films despite a couple of promising vehicles. Her evil on the silver screen proved to be quite indiscriminate. Kathleen was as devious and underhanded toward the distaff side as she was toward any man—a gorgeous nightmare for all seasons and reasons.
Kathleen was born in Hollywood, California, on November 14, 1928, and christened Elizabeth Margaret von Gerkan. She began her education at a private progressive school where she appeared in school plays. Following graduation from Fairfax High School, she briefly attended Los Angeles City College where she majored in art, although acting remained a stronger preference.
In 1948, while appearing in a minor Los Angeles stage production, the 19-year-old brunette beauty was noticed by a 20th Century-Fox talent scout and given a screen test. Her reward was a seven-year contract with options. The nascent actress gladly gave in to the exhausting starlet routine of endless interviews and cheesecake photo shoots, not to mention rounds of parties and premieres squired by the likes of Dan Dailey, Vic Damone and Lance Fuller.
Betty von Gerkan made her inauspicious debut in the Ida Lupino/Cornel Wilde film noir classic Road House (1948) where she wound up unseen as a bar patron after her original character’s scenes were cut. The studio, quickly giving her the more attractive moniker of “Kathleen Hughes,” then placed her in a slew of bit parts as either a fetching, dark-haired college coed (Mr. Belvedere Goes to College (1948), Mother Is a Freshman (1949), It Happens Every Spring (1949), Take Care of My Little Girl (1951)) or secretary (Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950), Mister 880 (1950), I’ll Get By (1950).
There was little career acceleration during her years with Fox and Kathleen was eventually released from her contract after three years. She struggled for a relatively short period as a freelancing agent until swept up by Universal-International after the studio caught her exceptional performance as a malicious college girl in For Men Only (aka The Tall Lie) (1952), her first movie as a bleached blonde. The publicity bandwagon immediately kicked into high gear, dubbing her one of Hollywood’s “Deb Stars of 1953” along with up-and-comers Marilyn (Kim) Novak, Anne Francis, Pat Crowley, Elaine Stewart, Joan Weldon, Doe Avedon, Sara Shane, Marjie Millar, Joan O’Brien, Barbara Darrow and Dona Cole.
It was at Universal that Kathleen’s billing improved and “bad blonde” reputation forged with such studio/loaner films as Thy Neighbor’s Wife (1953), a tawdry meller with Hugo Haas; The Golden Blade (1953) a Technicolor costumer starring Rock Hudson; and the previously mentioned The Glass Web (1953) and It Came from Outer Space (1953). She ended her U-I cinematic period with a secondary role opposite Rory Calhoun in the above-average western Dawn at Socorro (1954) and rare “good girl” part in the horror opus Cult of the Cobra (1955) starring lethal Faith Domergue. Back on her own, Kathleen quickly returned true to form as one of Three Bad Sisters (1956) for Bel-Air Productions and was featured in the equally low-budgeted Allied Artists presentation of Unwed Mother (1958). This effectively ended her major film duties except for some miniscule efforts here and there.
At the height of her Hollywood career, Kathleen met U-I producer Stanley Rubin (1917-2014) and the romance blossomed quickly, marrying on July 25, 1954. The union, which took place at the home of her famous screenwriting uncle F. Hugh Herbert, would be blessed with four children: John (born on June 4, 1956), Christopher (October 21, 1958, deceased), Angela (“Angie”) (May 28, 1964), and Michael (June 20, 1966.) Kathleen and Stanley’s Hollywood marriage lasted six decades, ending only with her 96-year-old husband’s death in 2014.
Kathleen’s passing resemblance to Marilyn Monroe is quite apparent in certain angles and profiles, notably in Three Bad Sisters (1956). Years earlier (August 1954), she enjoyed playing Monroe’s The Seven Year Itch movie role on stage in a two-week La Jolla Playhouse production. The George Axelrod sex farce was directed by Norman Lloyd and co-starred Don Taylor.
In later years, Kathleen graced many celebrity, film noir and sci-fi conventions. When requested, she was more than willing to offer a scream or two (although never heard on screen) for her fans, the requests coming courtesy of her terror-themed film It Came from Outer Space publicity stills.
My telephonic interview with Kathleen lasted two days (April 11 and April 18, 2020). While I prefer live interviews, the current pandemic and stay-at-home restrictions prevented any such opportunity. The 91-year-young actress proved a sheer joy as she offered a fascinating insight into her life and career.
GARY BRUMBURGH: In reviewing your body of work, I think you were one of the most spectacularly beautiful and glamorous actresses to come out of 1950s films.
Kathleen Hughes: Why, thank you so much! But, you know, I certainly didn’t feel that way about myself growing up. I spent much of my youth surrounded by two extremely pretty cousins, Diana and Pamela Herbert, who lived just two blocks from me in West Hollywood. I always felt like the odd girl out. We did everything together—went to school, movies, concerts, parties. When I was a child, my mother used to read bedtime stories to me and the one story I took to heart was The Ugly Duckling. I felt just like that little ugly duckling, especially when I was around my cousins. I used to hope and pray that one day I would magically turn into the lovely swan from the book.
GB: Your prayers were obviously answered.
Kathleen Hughes: I think I like you already! (Laughs) Back then, I was very tall and plain. Very gawky looking. My straight hair was dark and drab, I had bland hazel eyes and I had what I thought was a pointy head. I also had buck teeth from sucking my thumb as a child. It took four years of braces to straighten them out. I remember my cousins both wore these bangs that I thought were so attractive. I begged my mother to allow me to have bangs like theirs, but she refused to budge. In a fit of desperation and disobedience, I opened my bedroom window one day and, with a pair of scissors, stuck my head out and cut my own bangs! Mother was not happy with me at all, and I can’t say I looked any prettier for the effort! I finally began to bloom in my teen years.
GB: Did you come from a theatrical family?
Kathleen Hughes: Yes and no. My parents and younger brother Richard were not, but my uncle was the famous writer F. Hugh Herbert (1897-1958). The “F” stood for “Frederick.” People often thought my uncle was Hugh Herbert, the comedian. Not true. My uncle Fred was quite well known. He wrote the plays Kiss and Tell and The Moon Is Blue and introduced the Corliss Archer short stories to teenage girls. I remember my cousins and me going to live CBS radio broadcasts of Meet Corliss Archer when I was just a teen.
GB: Tell me more about your family background.
Kathleen Hughes: My real name is Elizabeth Margaret von Gerkan. The last name is German but my father, Henry Nicolai Reinhold von Gerkan, was born in Sweden at the turn of the century. I was always confused about what he did for a living, but I believe he came from nobility. His family was later involved in the oil business. He died of the flu when I was in my early teens during WWII. He was working for a defense plant at the time. My mother, Kathleen Réneé, was English and born in London. She met my father in London. Her parents ran a boarding house and my father and a friend of his came to London from Sweden to perfect their English. He was quite intelligent and spoke four languages fluently. My parents married and came to the United States where I was born. My house at 357 North Edinburgh Avenue in West Hollywood still stands. I remember both my parents as being extremely good looking. I can’t figure out what happened to me!
GB: Did you get involved in theater growing up?
Kathleen Hughes: Yes, I think I always wanted to be an actress. My Uncle Fred enrolled my cousins and me at a progressive school and I was in some plays while there. My cousin, Diana Herbert, always got the “beautiful princess” kind of parts while I usually got stuck with the ugly parts. Once I played an old Chinese grandmother in a Chinese play. I remember the Max Factor people coming in and making us up. I looked so hideous!
GB: But you enjoyed the acting aspect.
Kathleen Hughes: Very much so. I know it sounds like a typical actor’s story, but I grew up extremely shy and lived my childhood vicariously through the movies. I lived two blocks from the theater and used to love to catch matinee double features. They also had live musical broadcasts located near Hollywood and Vine where I would sneak in without a ticket simply by pretending that I had one. (Laughs) I guess you could call those my very first acting jobs! I used to see Harry James perform there regularly. I was such a huge Harry James fan … and Frank Sinatra! He was an idol.
GB: Did you have any movie idols growing up?
Kathleen Hughes: I absolutely adored Shirley Temple as a child and wanted to be just like her with her lovely curls and talent. There was one movie, however, I remember seeing as a teenager. It was called The Merry Monahans (1944) and starred Donald O’Connor and Ann Blyth. I thought, “Boy, I’d love to do this!” That movie has always stayed with me and kind of started me off thinking about pursuing acting.
GB: You were born and raised in Hollywood?
Kathleen Hughes: Yes … born at Hollywood Hospital even! The progressive school we went to was located across from the Hollywood Bowl. I remember a time when the school took us on a tour to see the Bowl. I was so amazed at how impressive and majestic it looked. It just so happens that my first real acting job took place at the Bowl! I was in my teens and was cast in an operatic production of Faust. Jerome Hines was the star and played the devil Mephistopheles. He was quite tall and very handsome. I had a little part in it as one of the devil’s assistants. I didn’t get to sing, but I loved the whole experience!
GB: Did you have any acting training?
Kathleen Hughes: Yes. After the war, at a time when all the GI’s were coming home., many of them settled in Los Angeles and became interested in acting. A well-known theatre company called the Geller Theatre Workshop [formerly the Max Reinhardt Workshop] welcomed them and signed them up. Since the Workshop required actresses to perform opposite them, they offered the girls scholarships. I got mine simply by answering a newspaper ad and submitting a picture. It was a wonderful experience and I learned so much while there. I was acting in a Geller Playhouse production of Night Over Taos when I was seen by a 20th Century-Fox talent scout and offered a screen test.
GB: It obviously was a good screen test because you were signed.
Kathleen Hughes: This is where my Uncle Fred comes in. It just so happened that he was under a Fox screenwriting contract at the time of my test. I told him how excited I was and asked for any words of advice. Instead, he offered to DIRECT my screen test! I really owe it all to him because he worked up a very clever and creative test for me—not the usual kind, mind you, where you just sit in front of the camera and answer silly questions. Uncle Fred had me sitting provocatively at a dressing table. I pick up a picture and talk to it. I played at being coy and sexy and thrilled, even blowing kisses at the picture. Finally, an off-stage voice pleads, “Show me the picture!” I then turn around to face the camera and show a picture of Darryl F. Zanuck! Well, it worked. Zanuck loved the screen test and I got a seven-year contract out of it! The irony of it all is that my uncle thought I was too tall for films. I proved him wrong!
GB: Your very first movie after signing with Fox was Road House (1948) starring Ida Lupino, Cornel Wilde and Richard Widmark. It was directed by Jean Negulesco.
Kathleen Hughes: It was a wonderful picture to start off my film career. I was so excited! They gave me one scene with Cornel Wilde towards the beginning in the bowling alley. I run up to him while he is bowling and say something like, “Come on, Petey, make this one and I’ll kiss you! And he looks at me and says, “How can I miss?” Sure enough, he bowls a strike! Unfortunately, the scene was cut. I was crushed, but when I heard that the director’s wife, Dusty Anderson, had her scene cut as well, I felt less bad. I mean, how could I complain? The final cuts were usually done by Zanuck himself.
GB: But you are still in the picture?
Kathleen Hughes: Only as a customer in the bar standing in the shadows at the back of the room. I don’t think I can be seen. I’m listening to Ida Lupino playing the piano and singing songs like “One for My Baby and One More for the Road.” I remember being fascinated by her dusky singing voice. My character had another line in the bar that was also cut. I make some silly remark about Ida’s appearance. I said something like, “There is still no excuse for that dress!” Ida was not only a great actress but broke major barriers for women directors. I got to honor her several years ago at the Hollywood Museum.
GB: Although you were disappointed with the outcome, would you say your first film experience was a pleasant one?
Kathleen Hughes: Oh, yes. I was on the set as much as I could just so I could absorb it all. I was so intrigued by the whole process. I became friendly with Cornel Wilde on the set. He loved to relax and paint in his dressing room. He had an easel and the whole set up. I later became friends with Dick Widmark when he starred in one of my husband Stanley’s pictures, Destination Gobi (1954). We were occasionally invited to Dick’s farm out in the California Canyon area where he raised goats. I once helped him feed them.
GB: Fox cast you in several sorority girl bit parts.
Kathleen Hughes: I certainly had my share of college girls. The studio just put you into film after film and I took whatever they gave me. I may not have progressed much there, but I did take classes and learned my craft. When I later earned a contract over at Universal, I was ready.
GB: Do you recall your role in Mr. Belvedere Goes to College (1949)?
Kathleen Hughes: I had one scene with Clifton Webb. What a precise talent he was, and not at all curt like his Belvedere character. He was quite nice to me. Mr. Belvedere becomes the head housekeeper for our sorority house and, in our scene, arranges a buffet dinner. I get to sample some of his cooking. I would love to have met my childhood idol, Shirley Temple, on the set but we never shared any scenes. (Laughs) My cousins both went to Shirley’s wedding to John Agar and I was furious that I wasn’t asked to go with them. Alan Young was in the film and we later met again on the Universal lot when he was starring in a film called Aaron Slick from Punkin Crick. My aunt was a real estate broker and the sister of my Uncle Fred. She told me one day she was going to show a house to Alan Young. I told her I’d love to see him again. She let him know and we connected! Such a wonderful man. Our friendship lasted until shortly before he died.
GB: You played in another college comedy, Mother Is a Freshman (1949), with Loretta Young and Van Johnson.
Kathleen Hughes: Van Johnson loved to play pranks on the cast and crew. He played a professor and in one scene was giving a lecture or something. He deliberately chewed black bubble gum and took the gum and spread it across his front teeth. When the director called “action,” he just smiled broadly looking totally toothless! He could be a real joker. Loretta was so glamorous. I have an interesting story about her. Years later after the film, my idol, Frank Sinatra, was performing live at the Universal Amphitheatre. I told myself I just had to go. I drove there and parked and went to the box office thinking naively that I could just purchase a ticket at the box office. It was already sold out! I was so disappointed but couldn’t leave because my car was completely blocked in by all the other cars. While I was deciding what to do, I saw Loretta walking up to the box office talking with a group of friends. Sneaky me devised a plan. I went up to Loretta, probably reminding her about the movie we did, and just chatted with her as I slowly filed into the theater like I was a part of her group! I then left them and hid in the women’s room until the lights dimmed. I found an empty seat and got to enjoy Frank Sinatra for free! Yes, I admit it. I used Loretta Young to commit a crime!
GB: You also played quite a few secretaries while at Fox: It Happens Every Spring (1949), I’ll Get By (1950) and Mister 880 (1950).
Kathleen Hughes: These were very minor parts so I can’t recall them all that well. My memory tends to fail me on many of those early films I did.
GB: What do you think kept you from getting bigger, better parts at Fox?
Kathleen Hughes: I don’t know. Maybe they had too many of my type and I wasn’t able to stand out. I remember being so disheartened when they dropped my option. Fortunately, I had to freelance only a short time, nine months maybe, when Universal came to the rescue.
GB: During your freelancing period, you appeared briefly in I’ll See You in My Dreams (1952) with Danny Thomas and Doris Day.
Kathleen Hughes: I don’t remember much about it except that the script described my part as a “pretty nurse” and I liked that! I later saw Doris Day several times at our dance classes on the Universal lot. Such a nice lady. Because she was a star at Warner Bros., I think she was just there observing or visiting someone.
GB: Paul Henreid produced, directed and starred in your next film For Men Only (1952) for Lippert Pictures. Although you had been in films for several years, you were “introduced” in the opening credits along with Vera Miles, Russell Johnson and Robert Sherman. In viewing this movie, I thought you were terrific as the spoiled, revengeful college assistant.
Kathleen Hughes: Thank you. This was the film that led to my contract at Universal. At the time I was working at the CBS-TV studio on The Frank Sinatra Show. I was hired for a sketch scene in which I played a sexy nurse in a psychiatrist’s office. Don McGuire, the actor/director, happened to catch our dress rehearsal and came backstage afterwards. He introduced himself and said I really should be working at Universal. He asked if I was available and I said, “Yes, I am!” He wanted to know if I had anything on film and I told him I had just finished filming For Men Only. Universal checked out the film, liked what they saw, and gave me a screen test. That was it!
GB: For Men Only ignited your “bad but beautiful” reputation on film.
Kathleen Hughes: It was the first part I did that had any kind of impact. While it was another movie set at a college, it was very well-made and had serious overtones with its anti-hazing theme.
GB: The title For Men Only was used as a line of dialogue. Russell Johnson, who plays a brutal fraternity hazer, has the line, “We don’t ask for weaklings. Omega Nu is for men only!”
Kathleen Hughes: When the movie played in smaller towns, people stayed away in droves because they thought the title sounded like a sex film! They retitled it The Tall Lie. Paul plays a married college professor who spurns my schoolgirl advances. I get revenge by staging a sexual “attack” in the hopes of getting him fired. In that scene I applied this real heavy red lipstick, forcibly kiss him, then run screaming out of the classroom.
GB: How was Paul Henreid as a director?
Kathleen Hughes: I loved every minute of working with him. Paul was a real actor’s director. I felt I was in good hands. He is the one who turned me from brunette to blonde. He thought I should lighten my hair for this part, so Paul’s wife took me to her hairdresser on Sunset Boulevard and, voila, I was a blonde! I loved it and felt prettier. I later recommended Paul to my husband for a directing assignment on his TV show Bracken’s World. Stanley sort of reluctantly used him on my recommendation, ended up impressed, and brought him back for other episodes. Paul became a good family friend.
GB: The first U-I picture I see on your credits is Sally and Saint Anne (1952) starring one of your early screen idols Ann Blyth.
Kathleen Hughes: Another college movie! I played a snob and opportunist in this. I also became friends with Ann. We would chat on occasion in later years. Edmund Gwenn was in the film too and was just a twinkle-eyed delight. Gregg Palmer was very sweet too. I do remember an incident with the director, Rudy Maté. I first met him during my wardrobe fitting. Each time I tried on an outfit I noticed that Rudy kept shaking his head “no.” I started wondering what he kept finding wrong. Was it me? Was it the clothes? I finally confided to, I think, the wardrobe person, and found out he didn’t disapprove of me or my costumes at all. He shook his head from side to side because he had a nervous tic! (Laughs) Had I not been naturally shy and discreet, it could have been very embarrassing for me.
GB: Czech director Hugo Haas worked in America opposite many a blonde bombshell in his “Blue Angel” styled melodramas. You were featured in Thy Neighbor’s Wife (1953) with Cleo Moore. How was that?
Kathleen Hughes: I seem to recall Mr. Haas being very pleasant to work with on the set. I don’t remember much about filming it. I think I played a maid or a servant in it.
GB: You appeared with Rock Hudson in the plush Arabian Nights adventure The Golden Blade (1953). You were, of course, now a blonde, but not in this picture.
Kathleen Hughes: No, I wore a raven-colored wig because blonde hair was unbefitting for a Middle Eastern servant. Piper Laurie was the beautiful princess in The Golden Blade, and she got to keep her beautiful red hair for the picture. I played her scheming handmaiden who hopes to become the new princess when Piper’s sultan father loses claim to his throne. It was a fun shoot and wonderful seeing Rock again. We first met at Fox when the studio asked me to play opposite him for his screen test! I gave him his very first kiss! The scene later appeared in something called “Screen Test of the Stars Before They Were Stars.” Rock was so nice and quite easy to work with although I wasn’t panting after him like all the other girls. He was very handsome, but I just wasn’t attracted to him like that.
GB: Did your height ever pose a problem in getting leading lady parts?
Kathleen Hughes: I don’t think so, although I did hear that Tony Curtis, who was a major star at Universal at the time, would not use me because I was 5’9”.
GB: I guess Edward G. Robinson, who was 5’7”, didn’t mind because you co-starred with him in The Glass Web (1953). Your part of Paula was described as “a beautiful but heartless television actress who uses seduction and tricks to blackmail the men in her life.”
Kathleen Hughes: It was a wonderfully wicked role to play. I not only got vicious with Edward G. Robinson but gorgeous John Forsythe too. I have to say Edward was so nice and gentle, and quite helpful. There was a scene we had between us where I had to cruelly laugh at him for being such a loser. Before we shot the scene, I went up to him and told him how nervous I was in working myself into such a laugh. He literally showed me how to do it. It had to do with breath control. He was that kind of person. When the shoot was over, he invited the entire cast and crew over to his home for dinner which was a lovely gesture. The only negative maybe was the director Jack Arnold, who was very friendly. TOO friendly. (Laughs) I did two films with Jack.
GB: Yes, the other was the 3-D cult classic It Came from Outer Space (1953), which has become your most notable film. After reviewing the film, however, I found you were only in one small scene despite being billed fifth! Did you have other scenes that were cut?
Kathleen Hughes: No. I am often surprised that this is the film people remember me for. I had one tiny scene! Universal had been using me to help them test out these new 3-D cameras. They had me walk up and down a runway in a bathing suit while they shot me. I guess my figure worked well for them in 3-D! (Laughs) Anyway, while testing the cameras, I happened to catch a script of It Came from Outer Space, which was the first film they were going to try the process. I asked if they had a part in it for me. They had already cast Barbara Rush in the lead and the only other part right for me they deemed too small. I didn’t care! I annoyed the studio to death until they gave me the part. The scene takes place in a sheriff’s office where I play kind of the sexy town tootsie. I’m being questioned about my boyfriend’s disappearance. At the end of the scene, Dick Carlson is standing next to his girlfriend Barbara in the scene. I leave the office say “goodbye” to him as I give him this “Come on up and see me sometime” look! That was it! That is all there was for my character. I had no other scenes. I was never in fear of my life or ever in any danger by any alien.
GB: And yet the lobby cards and posters prominently feature you front and center in obvious peril! There is a publicity still of you with your hands in the air that has become the archetypal picture for post-war 1950s 3-D horror.
Kathleen Hughes: Since there were barely any female roles in the picture, I suppose they wanted to balance out the ads and use more pretty girls. I’m sure they thought a sexy blonde in danger could help draw in male audiences. Since Barbara Rush is a brunette, I balanced it out as a blonde. The single shot of me looking terrorized was a fluke. A photographer on the movie set literally grabbed me and asked me if I would do some publicity shots for him and I said, “Sure!” It was totally impromptu. He said, “throw your hands up in the air and look scared.” I did and that is the screaming shot you see. I also joined others in the cast for some group terror shots. I’m glad I nagged the studio into getting me that part!
GB: In Dawn at Socorro, (1954), a “B” western I thoroughly enjoyed, you only appear in the first quarter of the film with Rory Calhoun, who plays a notorious gambler forced to leave town.
Kathleen Hughes: All I know is that I’m in and out of the picture before Rory ever reaches Socorro! I play a saloon girl who has designs on Rory who has designs on Piper Laurie. Rory was so nice and very handsome to look at!
GB: I see you got to play a “nice girl” part in Cult of the Cobra (1955) directed by Francis Lyon. Faith Domergue is the venomous vixen who picks off the men in the cast one by one. You play an actress in love with Richard Long who nearly becomes a victim.
Kathleen Hughes: Funny, I don’t remember too much about that film. Probably because I played the “good girl” in it! I do remember someone [Marshall Thompson] using a coat rack or something to shake and toss the snake out the window onto the sidewalk to kill it. I also remember not enjoying my experience with the director. Francis didn’t seem to like me for some reason. He would embarrass me on the set by giving me directions out loud in front of the cast and crew. During the shoot, I got the flu and had to be confined to my bed for a couple days. He was extremely upset with me about that, rather unfairly I felt.
GB: Right up there with all your other femmes fatales is Valerie Craig, one of Three Bad Sisters (1956). United Artists publicized your part as follows: “Kathleen Hughes plays a sadistic young woman with a lust to kill, completely without morals.”
Kathleen Hughes: That’s me! (Laughs) She was the baddest of the three sisters. Sara Shane and Marla English were the other two. We shot much of it at a beautiful Bel-Air estate. Marla plays a woman who always takes other girls’ men as a challenge. Sara was more crazy than bad per se. Dear Sara and I are still friends. She lives now in Australia.
GB: I’ve read that you consider Three Bad Sisters to be one of your favorite movies.
Kathleen Hughes: Valerie is SO wicked and villains are much more fun and interesting to play. They are often better written too. Perhaps I enjoyed the “nice girl” parts less because I was such a good girl off camera. Parts like Valerie helped me get it all out of my system! I have a delicious scene with Marla where I whip her face and body with a riding crop because I want to destroy her beauty. She ends up running out of the house crying hysterically, gets into a car and drives off a cliff! When I did the whipping scene, you never actually see Marla being whipped. You just see me committing the act. I was really whipping a pillow on the bed! I’m sure I beat the heck out of it!
GB: As I saw this picture and other stills of you, I could see, in certain angles or profiles, a passing resemblance to Marilyn Monroe.
Kathleen Hughes: What a wonderful compliment! Marilyn and I were young starlets at Fox around the same time, you know. I first saw her in one of those annual Fox studio club shows they would hold on the lot. These shows were usually made up of a few secretaries, mail room people and lesser contract players. Marilyn did a terrific number called “I Never Took a Lesson in My Life” wearing this slinky, sexy, black strapless dress. You could not keep your eyes off her. I knew she was going to be big. We never worked together but I do have a tiny connection to her. I was approached by the studio to play one of the chorus girls in the picture A Ticket to Tomahawk (1950). It was a relatively small part with the four girls featured in a musical number. The studio asked me if I could dance. I told them I had never had any training but would certainly try. They brought over a dance instructor to see what I could do. Oh, that poor man worked with me for HOURS trying to teach me the simplest dance steps, but I completely flunked out! They had to replace me. Marilyn had already been released from her Fox contract, but the studio knew she could dance so they brought her back to take over the part. I never did see the movie until recently when someone ran it for me. The dancing was just so difficult. I couldn’t have done it in a million years!
GB: After Three Bad Sisters, you were featured in another film, Unwed Mother (1958), released by Allied Artists. The film was sometimes referred to as a poor man’s version of Room at the Top. You were NOT, however, one of the unwed mothers.
Kathleen Hughes: No, I had a couple of scenes as a glamorous rich girl that Robert Vaughn makes a play for. He’s a real slick gigolo after my money. Off camera he was very, very nice—quite unlike his character. Walter Doniger was a fine director and a good friend of my husband’s. He became a close friend of the family.
GB: Having been at Fox, then Universal, the studio system seemed to agree with you.
Kathleen Hughes: To me, it felt like one big happy family. I never really had a working agent because the studio took such good care of you. I received singing lessons, dancing lessons, horseback riding lessons on the backlot … whatever you needed. You name it and they had a class for it.
GB: In the late 1950s you veered away from films and started focusing on television.
Kathleen Hughes: I also became more focused on being a wife and mother. I enjoyed TV and remember early on playing a slave girl in Kismet with George Chakiris at CBS on Beverly [Blvd.] and Fairfax [Ave.]. I was much younger than the other slave girls, as I remember, and they seemed to resent me for it.
GB: Did you prefer TV over films?
Kathleen Hughes: I had no preference really. I enjoyed both equally.
GB: How about comedy over drama?
Kathleen Hughes: Comedy is difficult, I think. I was more at home in drama. In comedy I was pretty much the glamour girl or sexy foil. I greatly enjoyed working with the best of the best like Lucille Ball and Bob Cummings on their sitcoms and was just awestruck by their talents. I remember doing an Ozzie and Harriet episode in which I was a girl who was seen practicing the trumpet in the park. That was fun. I was reunited with dear John Forsythe on both of his TV series Bachelor Father and To Rome with Love, and I particularly enjoyed playing Colonel Blake’s wife in a touching “home movie” episode of M*A*S*H. I love watching comedy programs on TV. There is the Comedy Channel that I enjoy catching. I love to just sit and relax and laugh for an hour or two.
GB: You went on to play a few wicked dames on TV.
Kathleen Hughes: A few, yes. I couldn’t get away from them and I’m glad. Let’s see, I played a blackmailer who gets murdered on a Perry Mason episode, and I was the adulterous wife of a mobster in an Alfred Hitchcock Presents show. I did a couple of Hitchcock episodes but, regrettably, I never got to meet the master himself. My parts seemed to get nicer as I “matured.”
GB: You also appeared on many popular dramatic programs: 77 Sunset Strip, Mission: Impossible, The Bold Ones, Medical Center, Marcus Welby, M.D.
Kathleen Hughes: I loved working on 77 Sunset Strip. Efrem Zimbalist was so nice. I had just had a baby and was breastfeeding on the set at the time. Some of the later shows I did, such as Medical Center and Quincy, were much smaller in size.
GB: You married writer-turned-producer Stanley Rubin in 1954. It lasted for six decades, a rarity in Hollywood. What do you think was your secret?
Kathleen Hughes: We were just a great fit! Very compatible. I’m a bit more social than he so we evened each other out. Stanley and I met at a party. He then took me to a showing of his picture River of No Return starring none other than Marilyn Monroe. It was a wonderful evening and, well, I just knew this guy was the one. I waited [age 26] to find the right man to come along. I had no interest rushing into anything. Stanley was right for me. We treated each other very well and had four wonderful children. Our son John is a filmmaker and daughter Angie became a music editor for films. I lost one of my children, Chris, to liver cancer. Stanley passed away several years ago.
GB: Didn’t you work in several of Stanley’s film and TV projects?
Kathleen Hughes: Yes. My husband supported my love for acting, so I kept working after we married. I appeared on a few of his General Electric Theatre programs in the early 1960s. Our children and I both appeared briefly in two of his pictures, Promise Her Anything (1966) and The President’s Analyst (1967). In the second movie I played a White House tourist and my sons John and Chris are in the scene with me. They were youngsters complaining and I tell them something like, “Now look, we are going to see every last site there is to see, so shut up!” The whole family went with Stanley to England to film the first movie. I also appeared in recurring roles in two series that he produced—The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1967-1969) and Bracken’s World (1969-1970) in which I played a secretary nicknamed “Mitch.” In real life, I would have been a terrible secretary. One of the last things I did was a small role as a nun in Stanley’s picture Revenge (1990) with Kevin Costner. I don’t know if I was cut out or not.
GB: Was there ever a role you were up for that you regretted losing?
Kathleen Hughes: Not really. I do remember reading for the Eva Marie Saint part in On the Waterfront. Who wouldn’t have loved working with Marlon Brando? But I never stewed over it, or any other part for that matter
GB: And you continued to work on your craft.
Kathleen Hughes: Oh, yes. You can never stop learning. I studied with Stella Adler for quite some time in the 1970s and '80s and studied voice with David Craig which led to some fun nightclub performances locally. I would go out on casting calls every once in a while, but found so many of the scripts embarrassing—I didn’t want to have anything to do with them. They were in such bad taste. Nothing like the shows and movies we did way back when.
GB: You certainly seemed to enjoy your time in the Hollywood limelight.
Kathleen Hughes: I met some of the nicest people. Very, very, very few unhappy memories. But, at my age, I guess I can get away with saying that there was a casting couch mentality and there were a few people I distinctly recall who should have left, well, their zippers zipped! (Laughs) I need not say anything more on the subject.
GB: You once said, in an interview with historian Tom Weaver, “I will act until I die or the phone stops ringing.” Does that still hold true?
Kathleen Hughes: I love acting! Look, I’m only 91. Betty White was still active into her 90s. I’m still available!
Author’s Note: I wish to thank Kathleen’s daughter Angie Rubin and actor William Lithgow for their valued contributions to this article.
Author’s Note: I wish to thank Kathleen’s daughter Angie Rubin and actor William Lithgow for their valued contributions to this article.
Author’s Note: I wish to thank Kathleen’s daughter Angie Rubin and actor William Lithgow for their valued contributions to this article.
Author’s Note: I wish to thank Kathleen’s daughter Angie Rubin and actor William Lithgow for their valued contributions to this article.
Author’s Note: I wish to thank Kathleen’s daughter Angie Rubin and actor William Lithgow for their valued contributions to this article.
Author’s Note: I wish to thank Kathleen’s daughter Angie Rubin and actor William Lithgow for their valued contributions to this article.
Author’s Note: I wish to thank Kathleen’s daughter Angie Rubin and actor William Lithgow for their valued contributions to this article.
Author’s Note: I wish to thank Kathleen’s daughter Angie Rubin and actor William Lithgow for their valued contributions to this article.
Author’s Note: I wish to thank Kathleen’s daughter Angie Rubin and actor William Lithgow for their valued contributions to this article.
Author’s Note: I wish to thank Kathleen’s daughter Angie Rubin and actor William Lithgow for their valued contributions to this article.
Author’s Note: I wish to thank Kathleen’s daughter Angie Rubin and actor William Lithgow for their valued contributions to this article.
Author’s Note: I wish to thank Kathleen’s daughter Angie Rubin and actor William Lithgow for their valued contributions to this article.
Author’s Note: I wish to thank Kathleen’s daughter Angie Rubin and actor William Lithgow for their valued contributions to this article.
Author’s Note: I wish to thank Kathleen’s daughter Angie Rubin and actor William Lithgow for their valued contributions to this article.
Author’s Note: I wish to thank Kathleen’s daughter Angie Rubin and actor William Lithgow for their valued contributions to this article.
Author’s Note: I wish to thank Kathleen’s daughter Angie Rubin and actor William Lithgow for their valued contributions to this article.
Author’s Note: I wish to thank Kathleen’s daughter Angie Rubin and actor William Lithgow for their valued contributions to this article.