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 series, '' Markham''.

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'', ''

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'', ''

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'', ''

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 so ...

'', '' Gunsmoke'', ''

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 ''

The Twilight Zone ''The Twilight Zone'' is an American media franchise based on the anthology television series created by Rod Serling. The episodes are in various genres, including fantasy, science fiction, absurdism, dystopian fiction, suspense, horror, sup ...

'' entitled " The Grave", 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. Alt ...

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, parti ...

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 ser ...

. Her last aired appearance was in a December 1966

Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year ...

-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 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Television and first broadcast on NBC. The series follows secret agents, played by Robert Vaughn and David McCallum, who work for a secret ...

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

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 opposing ...

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, 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: 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