The Tennessee-born Snowden (real name: Martha Lee Estes) was a movie actress and model who first made a splash on the Jack Benny TV show, sashaying across the stage at the San Diego Naval base. Twenty thousand sailors gave the curvy sweater-clad starlet a standing ovation that made headlines in "Variety", and every talent scout in Hollywood was on...
I wouldn't take anything for the training and experience I got at U-I [Universal-International] and for the wonderful people I met there. -- LS, in a 1956 interview with James Bacon.
2
I knew I was no Katherine Cornell, so I just chose my studio like I'd choose a college. I figured I had lots to learn and U-I was the best teacher. -- LS, in a 1956 interview with James Bacon.
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Fact
1
Moved to Hollywood in 1954 and first shared a Los Angeles apartment with another wannabe actress, Barbara Stuart, who later played Bunny on the "Gomer Pyle" series. The two starlets became life-long friends. When Leigh became ill with terminal cancer in 1981 and was receiving treatment at Cedar-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, Barbara and then-husband Richard Gautier insisted that husband Dick Contino, who lived in Las Vegas, move temporarily into their guest house.
2
In the early 1950s she performed at the Memphis Open Air Theatre in Overton Park singing in their light opera productions.
3
Born in Memphis, her father was an employee for the government and died when Leigh was 3. He reportedly slipped off a Mississippi River barge on Christmas Eve and drowned. His body was never found. Leigh and her mother Catherine moved to nearly Covington after his tragic death.
4
Long after leaving the Hollywood acting arena, Leigh played Maggie in a stage production of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" at the Fresno Community Theater and won a local award.
Universal dropped her in 1956 when she went against the studio's wishes and married Dick Contino, a brawny singer/accordionist of Italian descent. Contino had made bad press several years back when, while serving in the Army, he went AWOL and was fined $10,000 and served several months at a federal penitentiary. The couple, who married in September of 1956 and had two daughters and a son, subsequently put together a singing nightclub act and much later entertained troops in Vietnam in 1966.
7
Was diagnosed with skin cancer after a melanoma was found on her back in 1972 She had invasive surgery to remove the growth but, in 1981, the cancer returned and she died the following May (1982).
8
The blue-eyed blonde won a contract with Universal-International in January of 1955 with the studio's intention of promoting her as a Marilyn Monroe type.
9
Met first husband Jimmy Snowden when they were college students at Lambuth College in Tennessee. The marriage, which happened in the summer of 1952 and produced both a boy and a girl, lasted only a couple of years as he quickly enlisted in the military and they grew apart. With desires to become an actress, Leigh moved to California while her mother kept the children for a time until she settled. She started out in small "cheesecake" parts until finally breaking into co-star roles.
10
Was a photo and department store fashion model in her early career.
11
She met her husband-to-be Dick Contino at a party given by Tony Curtis to celebrate the first TV show performance of Rory Calhoun. Within three months, she and Contino got married. After a year, with the arrival of their first child, she chose to be a stay-at-home mom who cared mostly about her family. She hated housework but enjoyed cooking.
Actress
Title
Year
Status
Character
The Detectives
1961
TV Series
Susie
The Comancheros
1961
Ada Belle (uncredited)
Bachelor Father
1960
TV Series
Elaine Baker
Tightrope
1960
TV Series
Candy
The Lineup
1959
TV Series
Helen
The Bob Cummings Show
1955-1959
TV Series
Chorus Girl / Cynthia / Doris
This Is Alice
1958
TV Series
Betty Lou
Hot Rod Rumble
1957
Terri Warren
Riddles in Rhythm
1956
Short
Leigh
I've Lived Before
1956
Lois Gordon
Outside the Law
1956
Maria Craven
The Creature Walks Among Us
1956
Marcia Barton
The Square Jungle
1955
Lorraine Evans
The Rawhide Years
1955
Miss Vanilla Bissell
Lux Video Theatre
1955
TV Series
Haney Benson / Diane Baxter
All That Heaven Allows
1955
Jo-Ann Grisby
Francis in the Navy
1955
Nurse Appleby
Kiss Me Deadly
1955
Cheesecake
The Mickey Rooney Show
1955
TV Series
Mona Sanders
Studio 57
1955
TV Series
The Jack Benny Program
1954
TV Series
Beautiful Girl
Self
Title
Year
Status
Character
The Colgate Comedy Hour
1955
TV Series
Herself
The George Gobel Show
1955
TV Series
Herself
The Jack Benny Program
1954
TV Series
Herself
Known for movies
All That Heaven Allows (1955) as Jo-Ann Grisby
The Creature Walks Among Us (1956) as Marcia Barton
$850,000
