Background
Born Claire Ann Green, the daughter of a wealthy California rancher, she was trained at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New New York
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Claire Kelly
Edit ProfileCareer
Kelly started out as a model in Miami, and appeared several times on the cover of McCall, continuing her modelling career throughout the 1950s. She made the cover of Picture Week in 1956, and was a 1958 Deb Star. Kelly went on to starring roles in films such as The Badlanders (1958), Ask Any Girl (1959) and A Guide for the Married Manitoba (1967).
In The Badlanders, a western remake of the film noir The Asphalt Jungle, she played "the Angela role immortalized by Marilyn Monroe" in the original film.
In 1959 she was publicized as "the screen"s most exciting discovery since Rita Hayworth". In 1964-1965 she appeared in several episodes of the television series Burke"s Law.
She once dismissed Prince Aly Khan as "gauche" and Elvis Presley as "a mere child".
Achievements
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On November 6, 1954 Kelly"s 3-year-old son Nicholas Christopher DeWitt died after fighting for three days in an iron lung at Variety Children’s Hospital in Miami, Florida, the victim of a rare anesthetic hazard, which happened after he was bitten on the lip by Duke, a cocker spaniel owned by former featherweight champion Willie Pep, and his heart stopped beating as doctors repaired the damage with 25 stitches.
