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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ClassyCo" data-source="post: 295176" data-attributes="member: 7">When I first got into Marilyn Monroe, one of the first things that caused me to branch out from her were the endless parade of actresses supposedly created to rival her popularity. Barbara Nichols was an actress that showed up frequently on long lists of would-be hopefuls whose '50s careers were dwarfed because studios and execs saw them as Monroe wannabes. Nichols was born in Mineola, New York in 1928, but was raised by her parents in nearby Queens. I couldn't scramble a whole lot together about her childhood, but I know one of her earliest jobs was as a showgirl. When she was approached by an influential nightclub owner to become a striptease performer, she declined the offer to focus on her dreams of movie stardom. She began modeling in the late-'40s in numerous cheesecake magazines, appearing in a few of morale-boosting pin-up-style pictures for soldiers overseas. Barbara's first break as an actress came when she joined the cast of PAL JOEY on Broadway in 1952, a role she'd reprise in the successful 1957 film version. She later appeared in the Broadway production of LET IT RIDE in 1961. As a movie actress, her first role was as a dance hall girl in RIVER OF NO RETURN (1954), a Western starring Marilyn Monroe and Robert Mitchum. Over the following decade, Nichols had showy supporting roles in a number of A-list Hollywood films, such as THE KING AND FOUR QUEENS (1956) starring Clark Gable; THE PAJAMA GAME (1957) starring Doris Day; TEN NORTH FREDERICK (1958) starring Gary Cooper; THAT KIND OF WOMAN (1959) starring Sophia Loren; and WHERE THE BOYS ARE (1960) starring Connie Francis. Unlike many of her contemporaries and other Monroe imitators, Nichols was rarely the star of the films in which she appeared. Where the likes of Mamie Van Doren and Cleo Moore solidified themselves as the star of B-movies, Nichols was typically ushered into the supporting cast of bigger budgeted A-list features. Barbara's best work was probably on television, where she appeared practically every year from 1953 to 1974. In 1961, she played Liz Powell in THE TWILIGHT ZONE episode called "Twenty-Two", about an overworked dancer who has nightmares about death. She also appeared as showgirl Chickadee Laverne in two 1963 episodes of THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES, then the highest-rated series on television. She appeared on many other television shows, such as THE REAL McCOYS, GREEN ACRES, THE DORIS DAY SHOW, HAWAII FIVE-O, and ADAM-12. Her final acting role was in an episode of THE ROOKIES in 1974. Barbara Nichols died on October 5, 1976 (the 45th anniversary of her death being tomorrow), aged 47. The cause of death was declared as complications of a damaged spleen and liver. She had sustained such injuries year earlier in a car accident.[ATTACH=full]30861[/ATTACH]</blockquote>

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