Julie London Biography
Born: September 26, 1926
Died: October 18, 2000
Sultry blues vocalist Julie London began her film career long before she achieved fame as a recording artist. In 1945, 18-year-old London was selected to play a bargain-basement jungle princess, appearing opposite a gorilla in the PRC cheapie Nabonga. She was pretty bad, but no worse than the film itself. By the time she was cast as a sexy teenager in The_Red_House (1947), her acting had improved immensely, and by the time she played the female lead in the 1951 programmer The_Fat_Man, it looked as though she actually had a future in films. Still, London's greatest claim to fame was her long string of hit records ("Cry Me a River" et. al.) of the 1950s; many male admirers bought her albums simply to gaze upon her come-hither countenance on the dust jacket. Her status as every red-blooded American boy's wish dream was gently lampooned in Frank_Tashlin's The_Girl_Can't_Help_It (1956), in which she appears as a spectral vision who transfixes a wistful Tom_Ewell. Her best dramatic film appearances of this period include her leading-lady gigs in Voice in the Mirror (1958) and Man of the West (1958). From 1945 through 1955, Julie London was the wife of actor/producer Jack_Webb; years after the divorce, London played Nurse Dixie McCall on the popular Jack_Webb-produced TV series Emergency, in which she co-starred with her second husband, actor/jazz musician Bobby_Troup. Hal Erickson, Rovi
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