Doomed by her contract to stand forever in the shadow of Ava Gardner and Lana Turner (the studio’s favorites at the time), Jane Greer was once called “the greatest actress never to win an Oscar”. And it’s quite true: as the femme fatale in so much of the 1940s-era noir genre, she showed a sinister stillness about her roles that set her apart from the overacting of most of her female peers. I think I only ever saw her in Out Of The Past, in which she was every bit the equal of the brooding, brilliant Robert Mitchum.
So let’s have a look, shall we?
And out of costume:
Of course, no look at a noir actress would be complete without a gun:
Deadly.