Movies

Cathy O'Donnell (born Ann Steely, July 6, 1923 – April 11, 1970) was an American actress who appeared in The Best Years of Our Lives, Ben-Hur, and films noir such as Detective Story and They Live by Night.

Early life :

O'Donnell was born Ann Steely in Siluria, Alabama. Her father, Grady Steely, was a schoolteacher and owned a local movie theater. Her family moved to Greensboro, Alabama when she was seven, then to Oklahoma City when she was twelve. There she attended Harding Junior High School and Classen High School. She told a Boston Globe reporter in 1946 that she first became interested in acting at age fourteen after seeing Janet Gaynor in A Star Is Born. After high school she worked in a U.S. Army induction center as a stenographer. She left that job to study acting at Oklahoma City University, where she played Juliet in a college production of Romeo and Juliet. She then saved money for a two-week trip to Hollywood, where she hoped to begin a movie career.

During her brief trip to Hollywood, an agent of Samuel Goldwyn spotted her at a drugstore. Although a screen test revealed her thick Southern accent, Goldwyn was impressed with her appearance and put her under contract. He sent her for acting and diction lessons and had her cast in local plays, including a Pasadena Playhouse dramatization of Little Women. She later changed her name to Cathy, after the female protagonist in Wuthering Heights. She then changed her last name to O'Donnell as recommended by Goldwyn's wife, who claimed that audiences loved actors with Irish last names.