Mara Corday

Acting

Mara Corday

Born 1930-01-03 · Santa Monica, California, USA

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Mara Corday, born Marilyn Joan Watts (January 3, 1930 — February 9, 2025) was an American showgirl, model, actress, Playboy Playmate and a 1950s cult figure. Wanting a career in films, Corday came to Hollywood while still in her teens and found work as a showgirl at the Earl Carroll Theatre on Sunset Boulevard. Her physical beauty brought jobs as a photographer's model that led to a bit part as a showgirl in the 1951 film Two Tickets to Broadway. She signed on as a Universal International Pictures (UI) contract player where she met actor Clint Eastwood with whom she would remain lifelong friends. With UI, Corday was given small roles in various B-movies and television series. In 1954, on the set of Playgirl, she met actor Richard Long. Following the death of Long's wife, the two began dating and wed in 1957. Her roles were small until 1955 when she was cast opposite John Agar in Tarantula, a Sci-Fi B-movie that proved a modest success. She had another successful co-starring role in that genre (The Black Scorpion) as well as in a number of Western films. Respected film critic Leonard Maltin said that Corday had "more acting ability than she was permitted to exhibit." Corday appeared as a pin-up girl in numerous men's magazines during the 1950s and was the Playmate of the October 1958 issue of Playboy, together with famous model and showgirl Pat Sheehan. In 1956, she had a recurring role in the ABC television series Combat Sergeant. From 1959 to early 1961, Corday worked exclusively doing guest spots on various television series. She then gave up her career to devote her time to raising a family. During her seventeen-year marriage to Long, she had three children. A few years after her husband's passing in 1974, Corday's friend Clint Eastwood offered her a chance to return to filmmaking with a role in The Gauntlet (1977). She acted with him again in Sudden Impact (1983), Pink Cadillac (1989), and in her last film, The Rookie (1990). Description above from the Wikipedia article Mara Corday,licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Acting credits

The Rookie poster
5.9

Veteran cop Nick Pulovski is used to playing musical partners; many of the partners he's had in the past have died on the job, and often as a result of Nick's risky tactics. But the rookie who's been assigned to help Nick bust a carjacking ring is almost as hotheaded as he is … and when Nick gets kidnapped, his newbie partner is his only hope.

The Rookie

1990

Sudden Impact poster
6.5

When a young rape victim takes justice into her own hands and becomes a serial killer, it's up to Dirty Harry Callahan, on suspension from the SFPD, to bring her to justice.

Sudden Impact

1983

The Gauntlet poster
6.5

Phoenix cop Ben Shockley is well on his way to becoming a derelict when he is assigned to transport a witness from Las Vegas. The witness turns out to be a belligerent prostitute with mob ties—and incriminating information regarding a high-ranking official.

The Gauntlet

1977

Pink Cadillac poster
5.5

A skip tracer helps out a bail-jumper after her child is kidnapped by a group of ethno-nationalist thugs, of which her husband is a member, going by the name of Birthright. The baby is taken as leverage because, although initially oblivious, she has their money!

Pink Cadillac

1989

Raw Edge poster
6.3

A Texan arrives in Oregon and seeks justice for his innocently-hanged brother.

Raw Edge

1956

Tarantula poster
6.5

A rogue scientist near a small desert town arouses the suspicion of the town's doctor when his lab assistant is found dead from a case of acromegaly, which took only four days to develop. As the doctor investigates, aided by the scientist's new female assistant, they discover that something is devouring local cattle and humans in increasingly large quantities.

Tarantula

1955

The Black Scorpion poster
5.2

Volcanic activity frees giant scorpions from the earth who wreak havoc in the rural countryside and eventually threaten Mexico City.

The Black Scorpion

1957

Man Without a Star poster
6.4

A wandering cowboy gets caught up in a range war.

Man Without a Star

1955

Son of Ali Baba poster
5.6

In ancient Persia the son of Ali Baba (of forty thieves fame), Kashma Baba is a military cadet by day and a party goer by night. He falls for a girl who he later finds is an escaped slave girl belonging to the wicked Caliph. They flee to his father's palace. But alas, there's more to her than meets the eye. Will the evil schemers succeed? The sons of the Forty Thieves to the rescue!

Son of Ali Baba

1952

The Man from Bitter Ridge poster
5.9

The Man from Bitter Ridge is a film directed by Jack Arnold. Jeff Carr, a special investigator, arrives in Tomahawk. His assignment is to discover who has been holding up the local stagecoach and is guilty for a series of killings that terrorize the town. Sheepman Alec Black is suspected by the local population but it is not long before Jeff realizes the man is innocent. Alec even becomes a good friend although he is in love with the same woman as him, Holly. Jeff will manage to arrest the real culprits but not before the latter try to compromise him down.

The Man from Bitter Ridge

1955

Dawn at Socorro poster
7.2

Brett Wade, gambler, gunslinger, and classical pianist, is wounded in a gunfight with the Ferris clan; the doctor finds signs of tuberculosis. En route to Colorado for his health, Brett stops in Socorro, New Mexico along with Ferris gunfighter Jimmy Rapp. Sheriff Couthen fears another shootout, but what Brett has in mind is saving waif-with-a-past Rannah Hayes from a life as one of Dick Braden's saloon girls.

Dawn at Socorro

1954

Tarzan and the She-Devil poster
5.2

The king of the jungle fights off ivory poachers.

Tarzan and the She-Devil

1953

Problem Girls poster
4.5

A medical student learns about a scheme to drug a girl and pass her off as an heiress to an oil fortune.

Problem Girls

1953

Drums Across the River poster
5.8

When whites hunger after the gold on Ute Indian land, a bigoted young man finds himself forced into a peacekeeping role.

Drums Across the River

1954

The Giant Claw poster
4.8

Global panic ensues when it is revealed that a mysterious UFO is actually a giant turkey-like bird that flies at supersonic speed and has no regard for life or architecture.

The Giant Claw

1957

So This Is Paris poster
9.0

Three sailors on leave head for Paris with one thing on their minds.

So This Is Paris

1954

Foxfire poster
6.7

A part-Indian mining engineer looks for gold in an Arizona ghost town with his socialite bride.

Foxfire

1955

Allen in Movieland poster
4.5

TV goes Hollywood when Steve Allen visits Universal-International to prepare for his upcoming title role in "The Benny Goodman Story."

Allen in Movieland

1955

Toughest Man in Arizona poster
7.0

Marshal Landry captures outlaw Girard and bringing him in finds a woman and two children, the only survivors of an Indian attack. Later, transferring the prisoner his brothers free him. Then a stage is robbed of a silver shipment by Girard and his brothers. Examining telegrams gets Landry a confession from Girard's girlfriend. The telegraph line has been tapped and the telegrapher is the supposedly dead husband of the woman he brough in. Now knowing Girard's location he sets out after him.

Toughest Man in Arizona

1952

The Quiet Gun poster
6.6

A mild mannered sheriff must fight both a hired gun and local anti-Indian bigotry in a small frontier town.

The Quiet Gun

1957

A Day of Fury poster
5.9

Town marshal Alan Burnett life is saved by a stranger he meets on the trail. His rescuer turns out to be Jagade, a gunslinger just returned after years away, who finds when he gets into town that he can't abide the peace that has been settled between "his" people (i.e. the saloon-keepers, gamblers, etc.) and the righteous, "respectable" folk.

A Day of Fury

1956

Girls on the Loose poster
6.2

A nightclub operator, her sister, a beautician and two other women rob a payroll.

Girls on the Loose

1958

Naked Gun poster
6.4

Don Pablo Salazar steals a fortune in jewels from an Indian tribe and an Aztec medicine man puts a curse on the jewels until they are returned. Years later, an American insurance man promises to deliver the Salazar fortune to the rightful heir...

Naked Gun

1956

No artwork available
NR

A 1952 crime film edited from tv series Craig Kennedy, Criminologist. A well-known stage star is shot at when he approaches the front door of Craig Kennedy's laboratory. Later, the actor is murdered in his backstage dressing room, and Kennedy, aided by Police Inspector J. J. Burke and Evening Star reporter Walt James, is drawn into one of his most bizarre adventures. Blamour, sex and publicity motivate the mystery, played before an intriguing background of Oriental stage-settings and theatrical backdrops. Passions, bot homicidal and amorous, almost lead to Kennedy's death at the hands of the killer.

Tall, Dark and Dead

1952