American actress (1920 - 1991) and major contract star for Twentieth Century Fox in the 1940s and early 1950s. Considered one of the all-time great screen beauties, she is best remembered as the title character in 1944's Laura (in which she was quite believably cast as a woman so beautiful the detective investigating her murder falls in love with her portrait) and for 1945's Leave Her to Heaven (Fox's highest grossing movie of the decade, which tells you something about how cinema has changed). Her chilling performance in the latter earned her her only Academy Award nomination, for Best Actress.