Myrna Fahey

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Myrna Fahey (12 March 1933 - 6 May 1973) was an American actress best known for her role as Maria Crespo in Walt Disney's Zorro, and as Madeline Usher in the film version of Edgar Allan Poe's, The Fall of the House of Usher. She appeared in episodes of 37 television series from the 1950s into the 1970s, including Bonanza, The Time Tunnel, Maverick, Perry Mason, and Batman . Fahey also became the subject of death threats while dating Joe DiMaggio in 1964. The FBI determined the threats came from a patient at the Agnew Mental Hospital in San Francisco, who could not bear to see DiMaggio with anyone other than Marilyn Monroe, who died in 1962. Fahey complained in a 1960 interview that she was being typecast in 'good girl' roles because of what directors called her 'moral overtones' and wanted to play darker and more complicated characters. She'd worked in many Westerns in the late 1950s, usually in the role of the sheriff's daughter, including an appearance on Marshall Dillon in 1957 (the episode entitled: Innocent Broad), which later became Gunsmoke. Her image branched out in the 1960s, helped by House of Usher and a role on the Boris Karloff-hosted TV series Thriller that same year entitled 'Girl With A Secret'. Even her Western parts became darker. After a rough love scene in Bonanza in which she cut her lip, the cast presented her with an award for 'Best Slapper in a Filmed Series'.