![]() She was a scientist again in This Island Earth (1955), an excellent interplanetary science fiction epic, in which she is kidnapped by aliens and put into suspended animation.ĭivorced from Fregonese, and married to businessman Paola Cossa, Domergue lived in semi-retirement in Switzerland and Spain, moving to Santa Barbara after her second husband's death in 1992. In Cult Of The Cobra (1955), she played an Asian high priestess who can change into a snake, and who places a curse on six unsuspecting GIs It Came From Beneath The Sea (1955) had her as an unlikely scientist trying to rid the world of a giant radioactive octopus, which, due to budgetary considerations and not radiation, had only five tentacles. In westerns, she starred opposite Audie Murphy in Duel At Silver Creek (1952), Jeff Chandler in The Great Sioux Uprising (1953), and John Payne in Santa Fe Passage (1955), where she needed merely to be supportive and decorative.īut Domergue's career got a boost in the 1950s as a 'scream queen' in enjoyable low-budget horror movies, where bad performances were an asset. ![]() Despite the critical battering her acting had received, she continued to get parts, largely on the strength of her sultry looks. Meanwhile, Hughes had moved on to Ava Gardner and dumped Domergue, who married Argentinean-born director Hugo Fregonese, with whom she had two children. Because of the delay in its re lease, she had already been seen in Where Danger Lives (1950), a decent film noir directed by John Farrow and starring Claude Rains and Robert Mitchum, which was rather sabotaged by Domergue's inadequacies in the role of a treacherous woman. Four years and three directors later, it was finally released amid a huge publicity build-up for Domergue, who played Colomba Della Rabbia, a Corsican woman, who sets out to avenge her father's murder.īoth the film (directed by Mel Ferrer) and Domergue were crucified by the critics. The vehicle he chose was Vendetta, based very loosely on a Prosper Merimee novel. In the same year, he decided that Faith was ready for movie stardom. In 1946, Hughes cast Domergue in a supporting role in a soap opera called Young Widow, which starred his other protegee Jane Russell, who was also being seen for the first time by the public. He claimed that she made him feel young again and stilled his loneliness. 45" and "Bonanza." In the early '70s, near the close of her career, she wrote a biography of her early years, "My Life with Howard Hughes.Hughes, who owned RKO studios, bought Faith's contract from Warner Bros, got her to take drama lessons, set fashion consultants on to her, showered her with jewels and fur coats, and built a villa for her, in which he kept her a virtual prisoner. In the late '50s, she moved into episodic TV, appearing in a variety of series, including the Westerns "Colt. Upon returning to the United States, she took another shot at acting, paired with Robert Mitchum in the noir classic "Where Danger Lives." Afterward, she split from her contract with Hughes, moving on to minor Westerns and anthology drama series before acting in a number of science fiction B-pictures such as "This Island Earth" and "Cult of the Cobra." While not her favorite projects, these movies have gained modest cult followings over the years. ![]() Amidst the chaos of that production, Domergue married Argentine director Hugo Fregonese and the couple lived in South America for a couple of years, where they had a daughter. He then cast her for the lead in "Vendetta," a revenge drama that suffered innumerable delays due to Hughes's endless meddling and was released four years later, a critical and box office failure. Howard Hughes was struck by the beauty of the young woman and immediately bought out her contract. ![]() She landed a contract with Warner Brothers while still a high school student. Despite an early boost from tycoon filmmaker Howard Hughes, alluring brunette actress Faith Domergue never managed to achieve Hollywood stardom.
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