Martha Vickers

Martha Vickers was an American model and actress.

Early life

Vickers was born Martha MacVicar in Ann Arbor, Michigan; her father was an automobile dealer. She began her career as a model and cover girl. Her family moved to Hollywood when her father assumed control of an agency in Burbank, California. Vickers was 15 at that time.

Film

Vickers' first film role was a small uncredited part in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man.
She played minor roles in several films during the early 1940s, working first at Universal Studios and then at RKO Pictures. She next went to Warner Bros., where "they gave her the star push, rearranging her surname to 'Vickers.'" Her work there included the role of Carmen Sternwood, the promiscuous, drug-addicted younger sister of Lauren Bacall's character in The Big Sleep. She also featured in a musical, The Time, the Place and the Girl, followed by two Warner Bros. comedies, Love and Learn and That Way with Women.
During the 1950s Vickers worked more often in television than in films, with her final performances in either medium released in 1960.

Television

Vickers's TV appearances included the 1959 Perry Mason episode, "The Case of the Jaded Joker", in which she played Sheila Hayes. Her final two performances, in 1960, were on The Rebel, starring Nick Adams.

Personal life

Vickers was married three times, to A.C. Lyles, Mickey Rooney, and actor Manuel Rojas. Each marriage ended in divorce. Vickers had one son with Mickey Rooney, and two daughters with Rojas.

Death

Vickers died, aged 46, of esophageal cancer at Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Los Angeles on November 2, 1971. She is buried in Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery in North Hollywood, California.