Audrey Totter

• Name — Audrey Totter • Birth Name — Audrey Mary Totter • Occupation — Actress • Born — 20 December 1917 • Birthplace — Joliet, Illinois, U.S. • Died — 12 December 2013 • Place of death — West Hills, California, US • Known for — The Postman Always Rings Twice Lady in the Lake The Set-Up Medical Center • Resting Place — Pacific Ocean • Years Active — 1935–1987 • Spouse — (his death) • Children — 1

Audrey – some sources indicate "Audra" – Totter was born in 1917 and grew up in Joliet in Will County in northeastern Illinois. Her parents were John Totter, who was born in Slovenia with birth name Janez, and Ida Mae Totter. Her father was of Slovenian American descent and her mother was Swedish American. She had two brothers, Folger and George, and a sister, Collette. Totter graduated from Joliet High School, where she acted in school plays.

Totter began her acting career in radio in the late 1930s in Chicago, only 40 miles northeast of Joliet. She played in soap operas, including Painted Dreams, Ma Perkins, and Bright Horizon. She created the role of Millie Bronson in the radio show Meet Millie, a situation comedy about a wisecracking Manhattan secretary from Brooklyn. The radio series began on CBS July 2, 1951, continuing until September 23, 1954. Totter dropped out when her film studio refused to allow her to appear as the character on television.

In 1954, Totter appeared in the pilot episode of the later 1957–58 detective series Meet McGraw (with Frank Lovejoy), and in 1955, she appeared in an episode of Science Fiction Theatre entitled "Spider, Inc." She appeared with Joseph Cotten and William Hopper in the 1957 episode "The Case of the Jealous Bomber" of NBC's anthology series The Joseph Cotten Show. In 1957, she was cast as Dr. Louise Kendall, in the episode "Strange Quarantine" of the NBC Western series The Californians. Later in 1958, Totter played boarding house owner Beth Purcell in another NBC Western series, Cimarron City. The episodes were supposed to rotate among star George Montgomery as the mayor, John Smith as blacksmith/deputy sheriff Lane Temple, and Totter, but when the writers failed to feature her character, she left the series. In 1960, she was in an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, "Madame Mystery". From 1962 to 1963, she starred as homemaker Alice MacRoberts in the ABC situation comedy Our Man Higgins, with Stanley Holloway, Frank Maxwell, and Ricky Kelman. In 1964, she made a guest appearance on CBS's Perry Mason as defendant Reba Burgess in the title role of "The Case of the Reckless Rockhound". Totter had a continuing role from 1972 to 1976, playing Nurse Wilcox, the efficient head nurse, in the CBS television series Medical Center, with James Daly and Chad Everett. Her last acting role was as a nun, Sister Paul, in a 1987 episode ("Old Habits Die Hard") of CBS's Murder, She Wrote, with Angela Lansbury.

Totter was married to Dr. Leo Fred, assistant dean of the UCLA School of Medicine, from 1953 until his death in 1995. The couple had one child, a daughter. Totter died on December 12, 2013, of a stroke, aged 95. After a memorial service, her body was cremated and her ashes scattered in the Pacific Ocean.