Shirley O'Hara

Shirley O'Hara was an American actress. Born in Rochester, Minnesota, she worked at downtown film theaters while in high school, then moved to Hollywood, where a job operating an elevator at Saks Fifth Avenue put her in touch with film people. RKO Studios signed her at 18, and she made her debut in 1943 in the Kay Kyser musical Around the World. Her films included Tarzan and the Amazons (1945), The Chase (1946) and Ghost Ship, a part she won through an RKO competition for a shadow girl. She was a steady television presence in the 1950s on series such as Gunsmoke, Dragnet and Racket Squad, and later played Mrs. Malone on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Debbie Flett on The Bob Newhart Show. In the early 1970s she took publicity work as head of public relations at The Burbank Studios, appeared in Duel (1971) and Rocky (1976), and retired in 1995.