RIP Kathy Marlowe

 

Los Angeles Times

July 17, 2022

 

December 31, 1934 - July 2, 2022 1950s era blonde film "Goddess" Kathy Marlowe, once labeled the "It Girl" as the most recognized and photographed advertising model of the time, passed away July 2nd. She was 87. Breaking into acting with a role in 1958 cast in an "adults only" low-budget, now classic-cult film titled Girl With An Itch, Marlowe went on to roles in Bombers B-52 for Warner Brothers, The Helen Morgan Story, Death In Small Doses, The Phoenix City Story, and Queen of Outer Space, among others. On the small screen, the 5'6" actress with the classic 37-24-36 figure, Marlowe was a regular foil with George Burns on The Burns and Allen Show, playing the sexy fiancee of Burn's son Ronnie on the program, one of television's most popular episodic shows of TV's early decade. Also appearing with Dean Martin and many other stars on television, Marlowe took her place in the line up of "50's blondes" including Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, Mamie Van Doren and others in the Hollywood history books.

Marlow was born Kathleen Maslowski to parents Thomas & Julia Maslowski on December 31, 1934, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She was stunning at a young age, and the allure of Hollywood in the late 1940s post WWII drew her to California at age 15 since she was able to live with an older sister with a residence in Van Nuys. The high school kid with big dreams had a very practical side. The child of Polish immigrants, Maslowski knew the value of a buck. She enrolled in high school and also went to work as a bookkeeper while taking modeling courses. She also found her way into the big studios in the San Fernando Valley getting work as an extra on movie lots.

Graduating high school in Van Nuys, Maslowski became Marlowe. By this time, she was also teaching modeling and getting noticed as an ideal figure model perfectly representing the 1950's style of the sexy young American blonde girl next door. Over the next five years, Marlowe would be featured in thousands of ad layouts and would be named countless times as "Miss" this and that. It was serious public relations business of the day. Among her credits, far too many to mention all, are "Miss Long White Potato", "Miss Traveling Saleslady", "Miss Chinchilla", "Miss Green Stamps", and "Miss Lawn Seed".

She also appeared at any and every opening ceremony from department stores to highways to ship launchings. Marlowe was a worker. She was a practical mid-western Polish girl who took nothing for granted and accepted every job she could handle.

With the dawning of the early 1960s, the era of the blonde was fading. Acting roles and modeling roles diminished. In 1962 at a chance meeting in a Burbank bar, Marlowe met a former Navy sailor Jerry Thompson who operated fishing boats in Newport Beach. The actress and the fishing boat captain married and lived an idyllic life on the Newport bayfront for the next sixty years, and would have been celebrating the occasion of their 60th anniversary on April 6, 2022.

Predeceased by husband Gerald (Jerry) Thompson in 2018, Kathy Marlowe Thompson is survived by three children: son Gerald Livingston Thompson, Jr. (Betty); daughter April Ann Thompson-Egbert, grandsons, Spencer Gerald Egbert and Pierce Steven Egbert; and son Todd William Thompson (April Jennifer Grice-Thompson), and grandchildren. Ava Lee Grace Thompson, Tayden Courage Thompson and Josiah Endure Thompson.

A black-tie Hollywood themed celebration of life will be held in Newport Beach at the Balboa Bay Resort, Newport Beach. Please contact April Egbert at aegbert@firstam.com.In lieu of flowers, donations in Kathy Marlowe Thompson's name may be made to Share Our Selves, Costa Mesa an Orange County based non-profit serving the working poor families in the community (www.shareourselves.org) or FONBAS, Friends of Newport Beach Animal Shelter (fonbas.org).

 

MARLOWE, Kathy (Kathleen Ann Maslowski)

Born: 12/31/1934, Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A.

Died: 7/2/2022, Newport Beach, California, U.S.A.

 

Kathy Marlowe’s westerns – actress:

The Big Trees – 1952 (Daisy’s girl)

Wichita – 1952 (saloon girl)

The Bounty Hunter – 1954 (Mrs. Ed)

The First Traveling Saleslady – 1956 (model)

Five Bold Women – 1960 (Kitty ‘Faro’ Brewster)