Debra Paget turns 78

Today marks the 78th birthday of actress Debra Paget, whom the folks at Fox tried to make a star out of back in the 1950s. She appeared as a supporting player in a whole bunch of movies, and the female lead in some others, such as The River's Edge, which I mentioned briefly back in August 2008, where she had fiery red hair. Several more screencaps from the movie, all of which feature Paget, can be seen in the blog Coffee, Coffee, and More Coffee, which posted on Paget three years ago for her 75th birthday. The River's Edge is currently the only one of Paget's movies listed in the schedule search at the Fox Movie Channel's website, and isn't scheduled to air until mid-September. Note, however, that FMC's search only looks for the important people in the cast. People who are way down the credits don't get spotted. Paget is listed in IMDb as being in the cast of House of Strangers, which is also scheduled to air on FMC in mid-September, but that doesn't show up in their search.

Paget's most famous role would probably be opposite Elvis Presley in Love Me Tender. She retired from acting fairly young, when she got married for a third time in 1962, to a wealthy oil company executive. (I suppose it's a good thing her husband didn't die suddenly, leaving her to have to work in schlocky movies putting the company's name in product placement.) If you want to see more Debra Paget photos than you can shake a stick at, you can go to the debra-paget.com fan site, which claims to have been updated in February but looks as though it was designed back in 1999. Yikes.