She was also a spirited heroine in period pieces, opposite Burt Lancaster in The Flame And The Arrow (1950), Gregory Peck in Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951), and Alan Ladd in The Iron Mistress (1952). In 1950 she danced gleefully with Cagney in The West Point Story. Walsh again got the best out of her in White Heat, a classic gangster movie, in which she was the flighty wife of psychopath James Cagney, competing with his mother for his affection. The ending, as the lovers choose to die together in the barren rockscape, is one of the great western climaxes. Mayo then brought her new veritas to the role of the sensuous saloon singer on the run with escaped convict Joel McCrea in Raoul Walsh's Colorado Territory, an intense tale of doomed love. So it was brilliant casting against type when she took the role of Dana Andrews's unsympathetic, sluttish wife in William Wyler's multiple Oscar-winner, The Best Years Of Our Lives (1946), about returning war veterans. According to the Sultan of Morocco, Mayo was "tangible proof for the existence of God". By that time, "leggy Mayo with her voluptuous body and creamy skin" was part of many male filmgoers' fantasies. She appears in Kaye's daydreams in The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty (1947), and, later in Mitty's life, in need of rescuing from evil Boris Karloff. In The Kid From Brooklyn (1946), cream puff milkman Kaye wins Mayo and the middleweight boxing championship of the world. Goldwyn then cast his two favourites, Mayo and Danny Kaye, in Wonder Man (1944), in which she was a sweet librarian to his bookworm with a gangster twin brother. That's the last film I do for Goldwyn." So it was. "How do you like that!" responded Hope, "I knock myself out for nine reels and some bit player from Paramount comes over and gets the girl. At the end, Hope loses Mayo to Crosby, who appears in a cameo for a few seconds. Mayo soon graduated from the ranks of the Goldwyn Girls to be Bob Hope's co-star in The Princess And The Pirate (1944), in which she looked ravishing in colour and had good comic timing. O'Shea and Mayo were married four years later, the marriage lasting until his death in 1973. Goldwyn saw her potential, making her one of his Goldwyn Girls, as well as immediately giving her a small speaking part in Jack London (1943), which starred the uncharismatic Michael O'Shea in the title role. She then became a show girl in a Broadway revue, where she was spotted by an MGM talent scout.ĭavid O Selznick gave her a screen test, but decided not to sign her up. Her aunt, sister to Virginia's journalist father, ran a dance studio, where Virginia took lessons from the age of six.Īfter graduating from high school in 1937, she became a member of the corps-de-ballet of the St Louis Municipal Opera. One of her ancestors fought in the American Revolution and later founded the city of East St Louis, Illinois. She was born Virginia Clara Jones in St Louis, Missouri.
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