Elen Willard (born November 19, 1935) is an American retired character actress who worked in American network dramatic

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

series from 1960-66. Her first aired performance was a supporting role in a 1960 episode of the short-lived

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

detective A detective is an investigator, usually a member of a law enforcement agency. They often collect information to solve crimes by talking to witnesses and informants, collecting physical evidence, or searching records in databases. This leads th ...

series, ''

Markham Markham may refer to: It may also refer to brand of of clothing which originates from South Africa which saw it's establishment in 1873. Biology * Markham's storm-petrel (''Oceanodroma markhami''), a seabird species found in Chile and Colombia * ...

''.

Career

Collectively, over a six-year period, Willard portrayed twenty-four characters in twenty different dramatic television series consisting of various featured

guest star In show business, a guest appearance is the participation of an outsider performer (such as a musician or actor) in an event such as a music record or concert, show, etc., when the performer does not belong to the regular band, cast, or other ...

and supporting performances, including most notably '' Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond'', ''

Perry Mason Perry Mason is a fictional character, an American criminal defense lawyer who is the main character in works of detective fiction written by Erle Stanley Gardner. Perry Mason features in 82 novels and 4 short stories, all of which involve a c ...

'', ''

Ben Casey ''Ben Casey'' is an American medical drama series that aired on ABC from 1961 to 1966. The show was known for its opening titles, which consisted of a hand drawing the symbols " ♂, ♀, ✳, †, ∞" on a chalkboard, as cast member Sam Jaff ...

'', ''

Dr. Kildare Dr. James Kildare is a fictional American medical doctor, originally created in the 1930s by the author Frederick Schiller Faust under the pen name Max Brand. Shortly after the character's first appearance in a magazine story, Paramount Pictur ...

'', ''

Combat! ''Combat!'' is an American television drama series that originally aired on ABC from 1962 until 1967. The exclamation point in ''Combat!'' was depicted on-screen as a stylized bayonet. The show covered the grim lives of a squad of American sol ...

'', ''

Gunsmoke ''Gunsmoke'' is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman Macdonnell and writer John Meston. It centers on Dodge City, Kansas, in the 1870s, during the settlement of the American West. The central character ...

'', ''

Whispering Smith ''Whispering Smith'' is a 1948 American Western film directed by Leslie Fenton and starring Alan Ladd as a railroad detective assigned to stop a gang of train robbers. The supporting cast includes Robert Preston, Brenda Marshall and Donald C ...

'', and '' Have Gun - Will Travel''. Willard may be best-known for her standout portrayal of the character Ione Sykes in the gothic-themed western episode of the science fiction/fantasy/horror anthology series ''

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'' entitled "

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", with a cast that included

Lee Marvin Lee Marvin (born Lamont Waltman Marvin Jr.; February 19, 1924August 29, 1987) was an American film and television actor. Known for his bass voice and premature white hair, he is best remembered for playing hardboiled "tough guy" characters. Alth ...

Lee Van Cleef Clarence LeRoy Van Cleef Jr. (January 9, 1925 – December 16, 1989) was an American actor. He appeared in over 170 film and television roles in a career spanning nearly 40 years, but is best known as a star of Italian Spaghetti Westerns, partic ...

Strother Martin Strother Douglas Martin Jr. (March 26, 1919 – August 1, 1980) was an American character actor who often appeared in support of John Wayne and Paul Newman and in Western films directed by John Ford and Sam Peckinpah. Among Martin's memorable pe ...

James Best Jewel Franklin Guy (July 26, 1926 – April 6, 2015), known professionally as James Best, was an American television, film, stage, and voice actor, as well as a writer, director, acting coach, artist, college professor, and musician. Duri ...

, and

Stafford Repp Stafford Alois Repp (April 26, 1918November 5, 1974) was an American actor best known for his role as Police Chief Miles Clancy O'Hara on ABC's ''Batman'' television series. Career Soon after the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, he serv ...

. Her last aired appearance was in a December 1966

Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating Nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus, Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by country, around t ...

-themed episode of ''

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. ''The Man from U.N.C.L.E.'' is an American spy fiction television series produced by MGM Television, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Television and first broadcast on NBC. The series follows secret agents, played by Robert Vaughn and David McCallum, who wo ...

'' entitled "The Jingle Bells Affair". During the final two years of her career, she guest starred in four episodes of the ABC/

Quinn Martin Quinn Martin (born Irwin Martin Cohn; May 22, 1922 – September 5, 1987) was an American television producer. He had at least one television series running in prime time every year for 21 straight years (from 1959 to 1980). Martin is a membe ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

based series ''

Twelve O'Clock High ''Twelve O'Clock High'' is a 1949 American war film about aircrews in the United States Army's Eighth Air Force, who flew daylight bombing missions against Germany and Occupied France during the early days of American involvement in World War II ...

''. Actor

Earl Holliman Henry Earl Holliman (born September 11, 1928) is an American actor, animal-rights activist, and singer known for his many character roles in films, mostly Westerns and dramas, in the 1950s and 1960s. He won a Golden Globe Award for the film '' ...

, who guest starred opposite Willard in the second of her four appearances in ''Twelve O'Clock High'', said in an interview for a book on that series published in 2005 that he had "... heard she had quit acting because it was such an emotionally painful experience for her."Allen T. Duffin and Paul Matheis, ''The 12 O'Clock High Logbook'' (

Boalsburg, Pennsylvania Boalsburg is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Harris Township, Centre County, Pennsylvania, Harris Township, Centre County, Pennsylvania, Centre County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is part of the State College, P ...

: BearManor Media, 2005), p. 222.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Willard, Elen 1941 births Living people American television actresses 20th-century American actresses People from Los Angeles 21st-century American women