{{short description|American actress (born 1932)}} {{for|the Canadian Olympic rower|Colleen Miller (rower)}} {{Use American English|date=July 2020}} {{Use mdy dates|date=July 2020}} {{Infobox person | name = Colleen Miller | image = Colleen Miller in The Purple Mask.jpg | image_size = | caption = Miller in ''The Purple Mask'' (1955) | birth_name = Colleen Joy Miller<ref name="ha">{{cite news |last1=Hopper |first1=Hedda |title=Looking at Hollywood with Hedda Hopper |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/24572704/colleen_miller/ |work=The Honolulu Advertiser |date=February 20, 1955 |location=Hawaii, Honolulu |page=58|via = Newspapers.com|access-date = October 15, 2018}} {{Open access}}</ref> | birth_date = {{birth date and age|1932|11|10}} | birth_place = Yakima, Washington, U.S. | death_date = | death_place = | death_cause = | resting_place = | othername = | occupation = Actress | years_active = 1952–1972 | children=2 | spouse = {{plainlist| * {{marriage|Ted Briskin|1955|1975}} * {{marriage|Walter Ralphs|1976|2010|reason=died}} }} | parents = }} '''Colleen Joy Miller''' (born November 10, 1932)<ref>Hoffman, Henryk (2000). [https://books.google.com/books?id=IWNZAAAAMAAJ&q=November+10,+1932+%22colleen+miller%22 "A" Western Filmmakers: A Biographical Dictionary of Writers, Directors, Cinematographers, Composers, Actors and Actresses]. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. p. 420. {{ISBN|9780786406968}}.</ref> is an American former actress. She starred in several films, such as the Westerns ''Gunfight at Comanche Creek'' (1963) and ''Four Guns to the Border'' (1954).
==Early life== The daughter of Elias and Lillian Miller,<ref name="ct">{{cite news |last1=Korman |first1=Seymour |title=Lucky Colleen |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/24573098/colleen_miller/ |work=Chicago Tribune |date=February 3, 1957 |location=Illinois, Chicago |page=123|via = Newspapers.com|access-date = October 15, 2018}} {{Open access}}</ref> she was born in Yakima, Washington, and raised in Portland, Oregon.<ref name=gg>{{cite web|work=Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen|url=https://www.glamourgirlsofthesilverscreen.com/show/189/Colleen+Miller/index.html|title=The Private Life and Times of Colleen Miller}}</ref>{{sfn|Fitzgerald|Magers|2006|p=173}} Miller attended Lincoln High School in Portland<ref name="ct" /> and graduated at age fifteen.<ref name=gg/> In 1949, she was chosen "Miss Portland".<ref name="ct" /> Her mother named her after actress Colleen Moore.<ref name=":0">{{cite news |last1=Scott |first1=John L. |title=Actress Inherits a Career |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/77117531/colleen-miller/ |access-date=May 6, 2021 |work=The Los Angeles Times |date=October 10, 1954 |page=Part IV – 3|via = Newspapers.com}}</ref>
As a child, Miller studied ballet, but when she was older she changed to popular dancing.<ref name=":0" /> After graduating, she worked as a professional dancer in a San Francisco ballet company, and relocated to Las Vegas after three seasons to work at the Flamingo.{{sfn|Fitzgerald|Magers|2006|p=173}}
==Career== [[File:Myrna Hansen et al.png|thumb|Photo of "Universal starlets" in 1954 (from left: Myrna Hansen, Mamie Van Doren, Allison Hayes, Colleen Miller)]] While dancing in Las Vegas, Miller was spotted by a talent agent who signed her to a contract with Howard Hughes for his RKO Pictures company.{{sfn|Fitzgerald|Magers|2006|p=173}} She was 19 when she made her first film appearance in ''The Las Vegas Story'', starring Jane Russell.{{sfn|Fitzgerald|Magers|2006|p=173}} She shared top billing with Rory Calhoun in her next film, a western titled ''Four Guns to the Border'', which co-starred Nina Foch.{{sfn|Fitzgerald|Magers|2006|p=173}} She then had a leading role in ''Playgirl'' as a young Midwestern girl who comes to New York City to be a model and ends up involved in a shooting and a scandal. She then was signed by Universal Pictures, where she co-starred with Tony Curtis in two films, ''The Purple Mask'' and ''The Rawhide Years''.{{sfn|Fitzgerald|Magers|2006|p=174–5}}
Miller made one more film after 1958, a western titled ''Gunfight at Comanche Creek'' opposite Audie Murphy, before retiring from acting.{{sfn|Fitzgerald|Magers|2006|p=175}} She has an uncredited bit part in 1972's ''Stand Up and Be Counted''.
==Personal life== On January 20, 1955, Miller married camera manufacturer Ted Briskin.<ref>{{cite news |title=Ted Briskin Weds Actress |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1955/01/22/archives/ted-briskin-weds-actress.html |access-date=May 6, 2021 |work=The New York Times |agency=Associated Press |date=January 22, 1955 |page=9|id = {{ProQuest| }} }}</ref> They remained wed until 1975.<ref name=gg/> She married Walter Ralphs, an heir to the Ralphs supermarket chain, in 1976, until his death in 2010. She currently resides in California.{{Citation needed |date=December 2023}}
==Filmography== {| class="wikitable sortable" |- ! Year ! Title ! Role ! class="unsortable" | Notes |- | 1952 |''The Las Vegas Story'' | Mary | Starred Jane Russell, Victor Mature |- | 1953 | ''Man Crazy'' | Judy Bassett | |- | 1954 |''Four Guns to the Border'' | Lolly Bhumer | co-starred with Rory Calhoun, Walter Brennan |- | 1954 |''Playgirl'' | Phyllis Matthews | co-starred with Barry Sullivan |- | 1955 |''The Purple Mask'' | Laurette de Latour | co-starred with Tony Curtis |- | 1956 | ''The Rawhide Years'' | Zoe Fontaine | co-starred with Tony Curtis |- | 1957 |''The Night Runner'' | Susan Mayes | co-starred with Ray Danton |- | 1957 |''Man in the Shadow'' | Skippy Renchler | co-starred with Jeff Chandler and Orson Welles |- | 1957 |''Hot Summer Night'' | Irene Partain | co-starred with Leslie Nielsen |- | 1958 | ''Step Down to Terror'' | Helen Walters | co-starred with Charles Drake and Rod Taylor |- | 1963 |''Gunfight at Comanche Creek'' | Abbie Stevens | co-starred with Audie Murphy and Ben Cooper |- | 1972 | ''Stand Up and Be Counted'' | Nun | Uncredited |- |}
==References== {{Reflist}}
==Works cited== * {{cite book|last1=Fitzgerald|first1=Michael G.|last2=Magers|first2=Boyd|title=Ladies of the Western: Interviews with Fifty-One More Actresses from the Silent Era to the Television Westerns of the 1950s and 1960s|year=2006|publisher=McFarland|isbn= 978-1-476-60796-2}}
==External links== {{Commons category|Colleen Miller}} * {{IMDb name|588125}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Miller, Colleen}} Category:1932 births Category:Living people Category:American film actresses Category:American television actresses Category:20th-century American actresses Category:People from Yakima, Washington Category:Actresses from Portland, Oregon Category:Actresses from Washington (state) Category:Lincoln High School (Portland, Oregon) alumni Category:RKO Pictures contract players Category:Western (genre) film actresses Category:21st-century American women
{{US-film-actor-1930s-stub}}