Dee Hartford

A tall, photogenic brunette, Dee was born in Salt Lake City as Donna Lee Higgins to Edgar Higgins and Beatrice Thomas. She started out in the late 1940s as a model for Vogue magazine in New York. Her sister Eden Hartford (Eden Marie Higgins) (Groucho Marx's wife from 1954 to 1969) followed a similar career path. Dee's film career was rather stillborn following a small part in A Girl in Every Port (1952), but she did feature in a few well-remembered guest spots on the small screen in the 60s. In addition to being Groucho's sister-in-law, Dee was the third wife of director Howard Hawks (who was almost thirty years her senior). Still more consequential career-wise was her acquaintance with film maker Irwin Allen who was also a close friend of Groucho. During the 60s, Dee was prone to pop up in several of Allen's TV projects: as the android Verda and as Nancy Pi Squared in Lost in Space (1965) (along with Groucho, she had invested money in the series); as Helen of Troy in The Time Tunnel (1966) and as a scientist's wife in Land of the Giants (1968). Sci-fi aficionados will also recall her as a fetching Miss Iceland opposite Otto Preminger's Mr. Freeze in Batman (1966), her classy Jackie Kennedy-lookalike politician's wife in an episode of The Outer Limits (1963) and as fashion model Chu-Chu in The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. (1966). Following her marriage to wealthy Stuart Warren Cramer III in 1972 (ex-husband of Jean Peters and Terry Moore, Dee settled down to family life in California and dropped out of the limelight.