Noir Nook: Uncommon Ladies of Noir: Rhonda Fleming

Uncommon Ladies of Noir: Rhonda Fleming

Rhonda Fleming was known as “The Queen of Technicolor.” As such, she’s not necessarily the first femme who comes to mind when you’re talking noir. With her titian locks, she was a standout in films like A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1949), Tropic Zone (1953), and Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), but she also lent her talents to the dark side of the screen, with roles in five features from the noir era. This month’s Noir Nook shines the spotlight on the life of Rhonda Fleming and her memorable contributions to those shadowy films.

Born in 1923, the actress with the flaming red hair entered the world as Marilyn Louise Louis in Hollywood, California, the second of two daughters born to an insurance broker and his musical comedy actress wife. Marilyn was a bit of a tomboy as a child and loved sports as she got older; she was the captain of both the basketball and volleyball teams at Beverly Hills High School, and competed in sandlot baseball and bowling. She also harbored dreams of becoming a singer of light opera and took lessons for 10 years.

In 1943, Marilyn signed a six-month contract with 20th Century-Fox under the name of Marilyn Lane, making her big screen debut as a dance-hall girl in a John Wayne feature called In Old Oklahoma. Fox didn’t do much with her, but a chance meeting with Henry Willson, David O. Selznick’s talent scout, led to bigger and better things. After a luncheon date with Selznick, the young actress was signed to a seven-year contract without a screen test, and her name was changed to Rhonda Fleming. “It was a Cinderella story, but those things could happen in those days,” Fleming recalled years later.

After small parts in Since You Went Away (1944) and When Strangers Marry (1944), Fleming was introduced by Selznick to director Alfred Hitchcock, who cast her as a mental patient in Spellbound (1945), starring Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman. Her small but showy role was singled out by famed columnist Hedda Hopper. “That was the biggest thrill I had during those first few years,” Fleming said. Her next few pictures were a mixture of first-rate offerings like The Spiral Staircase (1946) and more mediocre fare, including Adventure Island, an actioner with Rory Calhoun. But her career took a turn in 1947 when she stepped into the shadows of film noir.

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Out of the Past (1947)

Considered by many to be the quintessential noir, Out of the Past tells the often-complicated story of Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum), a former private dick turned filling station owner, who finds himself plunged into his previous life after a chance encounter. Fleming was in only two scenes, but she made an impact as Meta Carson, who works with mobster Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas) in an effort to set Jeff up for murder.

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Cry Danger (1951)

This feature stars Dick Powell as Rocky Malloy, who has been recently released from prison after serving a five-year stretch for a murder and robbery that he didn’t commit. Fleming co-stars as Nancy Morgan, the wife of the man who was framed along with Rocky. Nancy appears to be a dutiful spouse, but it doesn’t take long before she’s making eyes at Rocky and discouraging his efforts to free her husband. Not so dutiful, after all.

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The Killer Is Loose (1956)

Here, Fleming plays Lila Wagner, the wife of a police detective (Joseph Cotten) who, years earlier, accidentally shot and killed the innocent-bystander spouse of bank robber Leon Poole (Wendell Corey). The film’s action kicks off when Poole escapes from prison and heads for the Wagner home, determined to exact his tit-for-tat revenge by murdering Lila.

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Slightly Scarlet (1956)

This rare color noir stars Fleming and Arlene Dahl as red-headed sisters June and Dorothy. June is the upstanding, level-headed sibling, while Dorothy is a kleptomaniac who’s no stranger to spending time behind bars. Between trying to keep tabs on her troubled sister, and supporting her politician fiancé (Kent Taylor), June finds herself involved with a ruthless (but handsome) hood, played by John Payne.

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While the City Sleeps (1956)

Set in the world of a multi-media conglomerate, this film serves up a star-packed cast that includes Ida Lupino, Dana Andrews, Thomas Mitchell, Vincent Price, George Sanders, and Howard Duff. The plot centers on the efforts of the conglomerate’s employees to land the head job at the company after the owner’s death; the coveted position will be given to the first man (or woman) who can solve the case of the “Lipstick Killer” that is plaguing the area. Fleming plays the ex-Vegas showgirl wife of the company’s current owner (Price) – and the mistress of one of the competitors for the job of head honcho, photo service editor Harry Kritzer (James Craig).  

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Away from the big screen, Fleming was married six times – the first was at the tender age of 16 and her fifth (and longest-lasting) was to millionaire theater-chain magnate Ted Mann, who owned (and renamed) the former Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood. Career-wise, Fleming used her training as a singer in several venues, including a stint at Las Vegas’s Tropicana Hotel, a tour with musician Skitch Henderson, and a one-woman concert at the Hollywood Bowl. She was also seen in a number of productions on the small screen, from Wagon Train to Kung Fu; her final acting appearance, after an 11-year absence. was in the 1991 television drama called Waiting for the Wind. In that feature, she played the world-weary wife of a farmer dying of cancer – Fleming later said that it was her younger sister’s death from cancer that had prompted her to take the role. She also established the Rhonda Fleming Mann Resource Center for Women with Cancer at the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, and worked for many years with such humanitarian causes as Childhelp USA, City of Hope, and the Olive Crest Treatment Centers for Abused Children.

Fleming died in 2020 at the age of 97. Of her appearances in her film noir features, she said in a 2012 interview with film historian Rhett Bartlett: “I loved playing those parts. They were naughty gals, and I was such a sweet little nice girl!”

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– Karen Burroughs Hannsberry for Classic Movie Hub

You can read all of Karen’s Noir Nook articles here.

Karen Burroughs Hannsberry is the author of the Shadows and Satin blog, which focuses on movies and performers from the film noir and pre-Code eras, and the editor-in-chief of The Dark Pages, a bimonthly newsletter devoted to all things film noir. Karen is also the author of two books on film noir – Femme Noir: The Bad Girls of Film and Bad Boys: The Actors of Film Noir. You can follow Karen on Twitter at @TheDarkPages.
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