Anne Heywood

While "Violet Pretty" may have been an acceptable moniker in the silent-movie days, it sounded too showbizzy to be true in the early 1950s: that's why English beauty-contest winner Violet Pretty became Anne Heywood upon entering films. She started out in bits in programmers like Lady Godiva Rides Again (1951), then rose to leading-lady status in the mid-1950s in such audience pleasers as Doctor at Large (1957) and Upstairs and Downstairs (1959). Remaining popular in Britain throughout the 1960s, Heywood was more or less an unknown quantity to American filmgoers, except for those art-house habitues who recalled her excellent work in the pioneering lesbian-themed drama The Fox (1968). The producer of 1969's Midas Run hoped to make Heywood a household name in the U.S. by having her appear prominently in the film's radio and TV ads together with male lead Fred Astaire. That producer was Raymond Stross, who happened to be the husband of Anne Heywood. - Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide