Ella Raines

Ella Wallace Raines (August 6, 1920 – May 30, 1988) was an American film and television actress active from the early 1940s through the mid-1950s. Described as "sultry" and "mysterious", the green-eyed star appeared frequently in crime pictures and film noir, but also in drama, comedy, Westerns, thrillers, and romance. Among the leading men she starred with were John Wayne, Charles Laughton, William Powell, Randolph Scott, Franchot Tone, Brian Donlevy, and Burt Lancaster. When film roles dwindled she turned to television. Her second marriage was to Robin Olds, a triple-ace fighter pilot and general of the United States Air Force Academy. Raines appeared as a pin-up girl in the June 2 and June 16, 1944, issues of the G.I. magazine Yank, and on the cover of Life magazine twice, in 1944 for her work in Phantom Lady, and in 1947 for Brute Force. Early life Born in Snoqualmie Falls, Washington to logging engineer Ernest N. Raines and his wife Bird Zachary, Raines studied drama at the University of Washington and was appearing in a play there when she was seen by director Howard Hawks. She achieved stardom almost overnight in Hollywood when she was made the sole contract star of a $1-million new production company Hawks had formed in 1943 with actor Charles Boyer, B-H Productions. She made her film debut in Corvette K-225 (1943), which Hawks produced.