Born 1930 in Paragould, Arkansas, American model and actress Jeanne Carmen picked cotton as a child before running away from home at age 13. She moved to New York City and landed a job as a dancer in Burlesque as a teen, and later became a model, appearing in several men’s magazines. She also became a trick golfer, appearing with Jack Redmond.
While in her 20s, Carmen came to Hollywood and appeared in B movies such as Guns Don’t Argue and The Monster of Piedras Blancas. She played both brassy platinum-blondes and (with her natural dark hair) sultry Spanish women.
Carmen’s smoldering good looks, hourglass figure, and striking green eyes quickly landed her on the big screen in 1956 playing a feisty Spanish senorita named “Serelda” in The Three Outlaws, and then was cast in a film for Warner Bros, the teenage rock ‘n’ roll juvenile delinquent themed Untamed Youth (1957), co-starring Rockabilly legend Eddie Cochran, which inspired Cochran to cover the song “Jeannie, Jeannie, Jeannie” for her.
In 1998, Carmen was the subject of a TV biography titled “Jeanne Carmen: Queen of the B-Movies,” on the series E! True Hollywood Story. She died in 2007 at the age of 77 from lymphoma at her home in Irvine, California, where she had resided since 1978.
Take a look at these glamorous photos to see the beauty of young Jeanne Carmen in the 1950s and 1960s.
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