Nancy Gates

Born on February 1, 1926, in Dallas (Texas), Nancy Jane Gates was a child prodigy who had performed on stage since she was little. At 16 she was recruited by RKO, which gave her a small role in The Fourth Commandment , Orson Welles ‘s second film , horribly mutilated in the cutting room.

After small roles in Hitler’s Sons , directed by Edward Dmytryk , The Pirates of the Caribbean Sea , by Frank Borzage , and This Land Is Mine , by Jean Renoir , he specializes in low-budget films. Above all, he appears in westerns such as The Mysterious Horseman , by Jacques Tourneur , The Sheriff of Dodge City , by Joseph M. Newman , or The Rawhide Trail , by Robert Gordon .. “Being from Texas, I was pigeonholed into the genre,” she said in an interview. “The funniest thing of all is that I had never ridden a horse.” He especially highlights  Comanche Station , a cult film by stuntman Budd Boetticher, where he shared the screen with Randolph Scott . He played the wife of a millionaire who is saved from the Indians by an intrepid cowboy (Scott). “She was my favorite leading lady, aside from Maureen O’Hara ,” the filmmaker noted.

However, Nancy Gates was a versatile actress. She also appears in Barriers of Pride , Henry Hathaway ‘s drama and in the films starring Frank Sinatra Like a Torrent and Suddenly . She has worked on television, in series like Bonanza . In 1948, she left acting in the background, after marrying William Hayes, a Hollywood manager and lawyer, with whom she had four children. She remained close to him until her death in 1992.