Background
Rogers was born Josie Imogene Rogers in Morehouse, Missouri, the daughter of Ina Mae (Mocabee) and Eben E. Rogers.
Rogers was born Josie Imogene Rogers in Morehouse, Missouri, the daughter of Ina Mae (Mocabee) and Eben E. Rogers.
She moved with her family to California at the age of two. As a child, her prowess at the game of baseball led her friends to nickname her Casey (after the famous poem "Casey at the Bat"). While under contract to Paramount, she used the stage name Laura Elliot.
In 1955, she began working with a press agent in Hollywood, Walter Winslow Lewis III (aka "Bud").
lieutenant was Bud who suggested that she use the nickname with her maiden name and changed the "C" to a "K". They later married and had four children.
Rogers began work under the names Laura Elliott and Laura Elliot for Paramount Pictures. She appeared in movies such as Special Agent, Samson and Delilah, Silver City, Paid in Full, Two Lost Worlds, and, in perhaps her best-known film role, Alfred Hitchcock"s Strangers on a Train, playing Miriam, the scheming, adulterous wife of Guy Haines (Farley Granger).
In the mid-1950s, Rogers began working on television She guest starred on various series, such as Stage 7, The Restless Gun, the Lone Ranger, Maverick, Perry Mason, as Francie Keene in the Wanted: Dead or Alive episode "Railroaded", and many other programs.
In 1964, she landed a starring spot on Peyton Place as Julie Anderson, the mother of Betty Anderson (Barbara Parkins). She left the role in 1966 to replace Irene Vernon in the role of "Louise Tate" on Bewitched. In 1972, she made her final appearance as Louise Tate in the episode "Serena"s Youth Pill".
She retired from acting, appearing in only a few guest television spots, and making appearances on the Bewitched edition of East! True Hollywood Story.
After battling throat cancer for many years, Rogers went into cardiac arrest. She then suffered a stroke, and died in Los Angeles, California on July 6, 2006, aged 80.
In the 1970s, she became involved with motorcycles after her son began riding and then racing at the age of 9. Rogers became involved in the world of motocross racing. She worked closely with the American Medical Association and established PURR ("PowderPuffs Unlimited Riders and Racers"), an association that brought women into the male-dominated sport, in 1974. PURR would later evolve into what is now the Women"s Pro-Class division.
