Sally Forrest

Actor · born 28 May 1928 · San Diego, California, USA

Sally Forrest (born Katherine Feeney) was an American film, stage and TV actress of the 1940s and 1950s. Forrest began her film career in the 1940s as a chorus dancer in MGM musicals. She made her acting debut in Not Wanted, written and produced by Ida Lupino. The film's controversial subject of unwed motherhood was a raw and unsentimental view of a condition that was rarely explored by Hollywood at that time. Forrest starred in two more Lupino projects, Never Fear and Hard, Fast and Beautiful, as well as other film noir films, including Mystery Street, directed by John Sturges, and the star-studded While the City Sleeps, directed by Fritz Lang. Her musical background and training as a jazz and ballet dancer brought roles in the transitional musicals that rounded off the golden age of MGM; most notable was Excuse My Dust.

Most of her films were made under contract to MGM, which prided itself as family entertainment, but RKO, headed by the eccentric and controlling Howard Hughes, presented a very different creative challenge. Son of Sinbad, now a cult classic, was one of his many pet projects where he had a personal interest in re-designing the star's skimpy wardrobe. With each rehearsal, Forrest noticed her harem dance costume slowly disappearing, until it was barely compliant with the Motion Picture Production Code.[citation needed]

Where to start: Howard Hughes: His Women and His Movies (2000).