Rhonda Fleming
About
Biography
Filmography
Family & Companions
Notes
Some sources list 1925 as Ms. Fleming's birth year.
Fleming described her first onscreen appearance in Technicolor: "Suddenly my green eyes were green green. My red hair was flaming red. My skin was porcelain white. There was suddenly all this attention on how I looked rather than the roles I was playing. I'd been painted into a corner by the studios, who never wanted more from me than my looking good and waltzing through a parade of films like "The Redhead and the Cowboy". --quoted in PEOPLE, 1991
Biography
A striking, red-headed leading lady of the 1940s and 50s, Rhonda Fleming was dubbed the "Queen of Technicolor" because of her highly photogenic green eyes and flaming auburn hair. She was signed by David O. Selznick directly out of high school and, after appearing in bit parts, was cast in her breakthrough role (her first in color and her first musical) opposite Bing Crosby in "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" (1949). Featured mostly for her decorative good looks, Fleming graced a number of Technicolor B-epics such as "Yankee Pasha" (1954), countless Westerns ("The Eagle and the Hawk" 1950) and in film noir played several femme fatale roles, such as the nervous secretary who frames a private eye for murder in "Out of the Past" (1947) and the adulterous wife in "While the City Sleeps" (1956).
Filmography
Cast (Feature Film)
Cast (Special)
Cast (Short)
Life Events
1940
Spotted on the street by an agent while she was a 17-year-old high school senior; signed to a contract by producer David O Selznick who changed her name to Rhonda Fleming
1943
Film debut (in bit part), "In Old Oklahoma"
1945
First film role, as a nymphomaniac in "Spellbound"
1973
Broadway debut, "The Women"
1976
Starred in the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera revival of "Kismet"
1980
Final movie before "retirement", "The Nude Bomb"
1991
Made first TV appearance in almost 20 years as Robert Mitchum's wife in the TV-movie "Waiting for the Wind"
1991
With husband Ted Mann founded the Rhonda Fleming Mann Clinic for Women's Comprehensive Care at UCLA
Photo Collections
Videos
Movie Clip
Trailer
Family
Companions
Bibliography
Notes
Some sources list 1925 as Ms. Fleming's birth year.
Fleming described her first onscreen appearance in Technicolor: "Suddenly my green eyes were green green. My red hair was flaming red. My skin was porcelain white. There was suddenly all this attention on how I looked rather than the roles I was playing. I'd been painted into a corner by the studios, who never wanted more from me than my looking good and waltzing through a parade of films like "The Redhead and the Cowboy". --quoted in PEOPLE, 1991
Named City of Hope's Woman of the Year
