Pamela Duncan (December 28, 1924 – November 11, 2005) was an American

B-movie A B movie or B film is a low-budget commercial motion picture. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified films intended for distribution as the less-publicized bottom half of a double featur ...

actress who starred in the 1957

Roger Corman Roger William Corman (born April 5, 1926) is an American film director, producer, and actor. He has been called "The Pope of Pop Cinema" and is known as a trailblazer in the world of independent film. Many of Corman's films are based on works t ...

cult

science fiction film Science fiction (or sci-fi) is a film genre that uses speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial lifeforms, spacecraft, robots, cyborgs, interstellar ...

Attack of the Crab Monsters Attack may refer to: Warfare and combat * Offensive (military) * Charge (warfare) * Attack (fencing) * Strike (attack) * Attack (computing) * Attack aircraft Books and publishing * ''The Attack'' (novel), a book * ''Attack No. 1'', comic an ...

'' and later appeared in the 2000 Academy Award-nominated documentary, '' Curtain Call'', that focused on the lives and careers of the residents of the

Lillian Booth Actors Home The Lillian Booth Actors Home of The Actors Fund is an American assisted-living facility, in Englewood, New Jersey. It is operated by the Actors Fund, a nonprofit umbrella charitable organization that assists American entertainment and performi ...

Englewood, New Jersey Englewood is a city in Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, which at the 2020 United States census had a population of 29,308. Englewood was incorporated as a city by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 17, 1899, from por ...

Biography

A native of

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, Duncan won several local

beauty pageants A beauty pageant is a competition that has traditionally focused on judging and ranking the physical attributes of the contestants. Pageants have now evolved to include inner beauty, with criteria covering judging of personality, intelligence, ...

as a teenager before moving to Southern California to get into film acting. She attended Cornell University and

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admi ...

. Duncan worked three years in

summer stock theatre In American theater, summer-stock theater is a theater that presents stage productions only in the summer. The name combines the season with the tradition of staging shows by a resident company, reusing stock scenery and costumes. Summer stock the ...

. Her first role came when she appeared in the 1951 film ''Whistling Hills''. Also in the 1950s, she played the part of Mike Hammer's secretary Velda in the mystery drama '' My Gun Is Quick''. On television, Duncan appeared on a number of television programs. In 1958 she appeared on ''

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 ...

'' as the murder victim and title character in "The Case of the Daring Decoy." Other television appearances included ''

Pony Express The Pony Express was an American express mail service that used relays of horse-mounted riders. It operated from April 3, 1860, to October 26, 1861, between Missouri and California. It was operated by the Central Overland California and Pik ...

'', ''

Highway Patrol A highway patrol, or state patrol is either a police unit created primarily for the purpose of overseeing and enforcing traffic safety compliance on roads and highways, or a detail within an existing local or regional police agency that is prima ...

'', ''

Maverick Maverick, Maveric or Maverik may refer to: History * Maverick (animal), an unbranded range animal, derived from U.S. cattleman Samuel Maverick Aviation * AEA Maverick, an Australian single-seat sportsplane design * General Aviation Design Burea ...

'', ''

The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp ''The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp'' is the first Western television series written for adults, premiering four days before ''Gunsmoke'' on September 6, 1955. Two weeks later came the Clint Walker western ''Cheyenne''. The series is loosely base ...

'', '' Colt .45'', ''

Tombstone Territory ''Tombstone Territory'' is an American Western series starring Pat Conway and Richard Eastham. The series' first two seasons aired on ABC from 1957 to 1959. The first season was sponsored by Bristol-Myers (consumer products) and the second seaso ...

'', ''

Sea Hunt ''Sea Hunt'' is an American action adventure television series that aired in syndication from 1958 to 1961 and was popular for decades afterwards. The series originally aired for four seasons, with 155 episodes produced. It stars Lloyd Bridges as ...

'', Tales of Wells Fargo episode 14 The Sliver Bullets, and in 1959 she appeared in ''

Bat Masterson Bartholemew William Barclay "Bat" Masterson (November 26, 1853 – October 25, 1921) was a U.S. Army scout, lawman, professional gambler, and journalist known for his exploits in the 19th and early 20th-century American Old West. He was born to ...

,'' as Rachel Lowery in the episode "Lady Luck." In still another 1959 appearance, Duncan was cast as traveling show performer "Princess Nadja" in the episode "RX: Slow Death" on the syndicated

anthology series An anthology series is a radio, television, video game or film series that spans different genres and presents a different story and a different set of characters in each different episode, season, segment, or short. These usually have a differ ...

, ''

Death Valley Days ''Death Valley Days'' is an American old-time radio and television anthology series featuring true accounts of the American Old West, particularly the Death Valley country of southeastern California. Created in 1930 by Ruth Woodman, the program ...

'', hosted by the "Old Ranger" (

Stanley Andrews Stanley Andrews (born Stanley Martin Andrzejewski; August 28, 1891 – June 23, 1969) was an American actor perhaps best known as the voice of Daddy Warbucks on the radio program ''Little Orphan Annie'' and later as "The Old Ranger", the first ...

). On November 11, 2005, Duncan died from a stroke at the Booth Home in Englewood, New Jersey. She was 80.

Filmography

References

External links

* * * * 1924 births 2005 deaths American film actresses American television actresses People from Brooklyn Actresses from New York (state) Actresses from Los Angeles 20th-century American actresses 21st-century American women {{US-screen-actor-1930s-stub