Martha Hyer
Date of Birth
Martha Hyer was a film and television actress who received an Oscar nomination for her performance as a small-town schoolteacher in the 1958 feature Some Came Running.
Born in Fort Worth, Texas, she moved to California to pursue an acting career after studying at Northwestern University. A play at the Pasadena Playhouse led to a contract with RKO Pictures. She made her movie debut with an uncredited role in the 1946 release The Locket and appeared in several others before being cast as William Holden's fiancée in the 1954 romance Sabrina, which also starred Audrey Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart.
Martha Hyer was a film and television actress who received an Oscar nomination for her performance as a small-town schoolteacher in the 1958 feature Some Came Running.
Born in Fort Worth, Texas, she moved to California to pursue an acting career after studying at Northwestern University. A play at the Pasadena Playhouse led to a contract with RKO Pictures. She made her movie debut with an uncredited role in the 1946 release The Locket and appeared in several others before being cast as William Holden's fiancée in the 1954 romance Sabrina, which also starred Audrey Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart.
Some Came Running, based on the novel by James Jones, starred Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Shirley MacLaine. Her other film credits included Abbott and Costello Go to Mars, Francis in the Navy, Battle Hymn, My Man Godfrey, Houseboat, The Best of Everything, The Carpetbaggers and The Sons of Katie Elder.
Hyer began appearing on television in the early 1950s with roles on such programs as The Lone Ranger, The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickock and Schlitz Playhouse. Other credits in the years that followed included Lux Video Theatre, Playhouse 90, Rawhide, Route 66, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Burke's Law, The Beverly Hillbillies, Bewitched, The Name of the Game, The Virginian and McCloud.
Her first marriage, which ended in divorce, was to director C. Ray Stahl. In 1966 she married Hal B. Wallis, the renowned producer of such classic films as Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon and True Grit. They remained together until his passing in 1986.
She wrote about her life in the 1990 book, Finding My Way: A Hollywood Memoir.
Hyer died May 31 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She was 89.
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