Leslie Brooks

Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, her parents brought her to Southern California at an early age, where around 1940 she started work as a photographic model. At the beginning of her career in show business she appeared as Lorraine Gettman.

As Leslie Brooks, she began appearing in movie bit roles for Columbia in 1941. Brooks started landing more sizable parts in such movies as Nine Girls (1944), Cover Girl (1944), and the lead in the film noir classic Blonde Ice (1948). She retired from films in 1949, but returned to make one last film in 1971.

Brooks was born in Lincoln, Nebraska on July 13, 1922, the daughter of Paul and Fern Clark Gettman. She spent much of her childhood with her paternal grandparents who ran a hotel in Crofton, and attended high school in Omaha. Brooks was married twice and had four daughters. She wed her first husband, actor Donald Anthony Shay, on January 6, 1945, in Beverly Hills, California. They had a daughter, Leslie Victoria (b. 1945), and divorced in 1948. In 1950, she married Russ Vincent, an actor and, later, a successful Hollywood land developer. She had appeared with him in the 1948 film Blonde Ice. They remained married until his death 51 years later. Brooks and Vincent had three daughters together; Dorena Marla (b. 1954), Gina L. (b. 1956) and Darla R. (b. 1960).

Brooks died on July 1, 2011, at the age of 88 in Sherman Oaks, California and was buried at the Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles.