RIP Marie Harmon

 

Marie Harmon, Actress in 1940s Westerns, Dies at 97

The Hollywood Reporter

By Mike Barnes

1/28/2021

 

A contract player at Republic Pictures, she worked alongside the Andrews Sisters, Roy Rogers and Mickey Rooney.

Marie Harmon, a starlet in 1940s Hollywood who starred with Roy Rogers in Nighttime in Nevada and with Sunset Carson in The El Paso Kid, has died. She was 97.

Harmon died Monday of natural causes in Los Angeles, one of her daughters, actress Sondra Currie, said.

A contract player at Republic Pictures, Harmon also appeared in other features including The Sailor Takes a Wife (1945) opposite Robert Walker, Her Lucky Night (1945) with the Andrews Sisters, Killer McCoy (1947) with Mickey Rooney and Not Wanted (1949) with Sally Forrest.

One of seven children, Harmon was born on Oct. 21, 1923, in Oak Park, Illinois. She entered a contest in the Chicago Tribune to become "The Perfect Blind Date for a Serviceman" shortly after the start of World War II and won.

She came to Hollywood in 1942 as worked as a car-hop at a drive-in, a cigarette girl — "George Raft flirted with me one evening, to the distaste of Betty Grable," she said in an undated interview for the website Western Clippings — and a hostess for a nightclub owned by Lou Costello.

Spotted by a Universal Pictures executive while appearing in a play in Beverly Hills, she was given a role in Hers to Hold (1943), starring Deanna Durbin and Joseph Cotten, and her career was off and running. However, she gave up her acting in the 1950s to launch a dress business.

In addition to Sondra Currie and her husband, producer-director Alan J. Levi, survivors include her twin daughters, Cherie Currie (former lead vocalist of The Runaways and ex-wife of actor Robert Hays) and Marie Currie (also a musician and ex-wife of Toto guitarist Steve Lukather); her son, Don; and grandchildren Tina, Trevor, Jake and Grace.

Her husband of 35 years, Wolfgang Kaupisch, died in 2010.

Harmon was portrayed by Tatum O'Neal in The Runaways (2010), which starred Dakota Fanning as Cherie, Riley Keough as Marie, Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett, Scout Taylor-Compton as Lita Ford and Stella Maeve as Sandy West. The movie was based on Cherie's 2010 book, Neon Angel.

Actress Marie Harmon died on January 25, 2021 She was 97. Harmon was born on October 21, 1923, in Chicago, Illinois, United States. She had five siblings, all brothers. As a child, she performed in local theater productions. At age 18, she moved to Hollywood, California, to pursue a professional career in acting. Her acting debut was an uncredited role in the 1943 film “Hers to Hold”, starring Deanna Durbin and Joseph Cotton.,

Harmon was married three times. Her first husband was William G. Jones. Their only child is actress Sondra Currie. They divorced in 1948. She then married Donald Currie in 1951. She quit show business to open up a female clothing store. The couple had three children; twin daughters Cherie Currie and Marie Currie, and a son Don Anthony Currie. Marie was the mother-in-law of Alan J. Levi, and formerly of Steven Lukather and Robert Hays. Harmon divorced Currie in 1972. Three years later, she married Wolfgang Kaupisch, who died in on June 9, 2010, at age 95.

 

HARMON, Marie (Matilda Marie Harmon)

Born: 10/21/1923, Oak Park, Illinois, U.S.A.

Died: 1/25/2021, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

 

Marie Harmon’s westerns – actress:

Springtime in Texas – 1945 (Kitty Stevens)

The El Paso Kid – 1946 (Sally Stoner)

Gunsmoke – 1947 (Conchita)

Nighttime in Nevada – 1948 (Toni Borden)