"Allison Mary Jane Hayes played strong women on the screen. But she fought her bitterest battles off screen..."

Continuing our profile of Fifties "Scream Queen" Allison Hayes, we look at her life and career outside her horror films where she had a few real horrors to grapple with in...

PART TWO:  ALLISON IN FACT

by JACKRANDALL EARLES

(Note: This is the second a series of two articles detailing the life and career of Fifties "scream queen" Allison Hayes. You can read the first article here.)

On a clear day, from the top of the hill, you can see what used to be the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studio. Rosalind Russell and Mary Astor are nearby. The road from Charleston, West Virginia, ends here at Holy Cross Cemetery, Los Angeles, California, for Mary Jane Hayes. Thousands of girls came to Hollywood to be in "the movies," and most of them never even stood before a camera. She beat the odds. She still exists on celluloid and video tape and in dusty still photos that are prized in collections or that are gathering dust in places like Eddie Brandt’s Saturday Matinee and Ohlinger’s. Who was this girl and why did she make it when others didn’t?

Mary Jane Hayes was born on March 6, 1930, at 1:05 p.m. Her parents were William Edward and Charlotte Gibson Hayes, aged 49 and 37 at her birth respectively. Her father was chief engineer of the Navy Department’s Bureau of Ordnance. The family lived in Quarters M of the Military Reservation at South Charleston, West Virginia when Mary Jane was born. The family moved to Washington, D.C. (her mother’s native city), when Mary Jane was small. She had an older half brother William E. Hayes, Jr. Mary Jane attended St. Gabriel’s Parochial School, Holy Cross Academy, and graduated from Calvin Coolidge High School in 1948. She also studied acting at Catholic University Campus School. Mary Jane was an accomplished pianist and played concerts with the American University Symphony Orchestra during her high school senior year. She thought she might follow a career as a concert pianist. She favored the composers Beethoven and Rachmaninoff when she played.

However, in 1949, she was chosen to represent Washington, D.C., in the Miss America Pageant. It was Mary Jane’s first pageant experience, and she liked it very much. Titles came to her quickly after that. She was chosen by the Peruvian Ambassador to represent the United States at a festival in Lima, Peru. She was the official hostess for the Washington Cherry Blossom Festival and was crowned Miss Dixie at Daytona Beach.

When she returned to Washington, she began a career in the fledgling television industry, serving first as a model for experimental color television broadcasts on August 17-19, 1949 (this might have been just prior to the Miss America Pageant.) Later she appeared regularly with Milton Q. Ford on WMAL (now WJLA-TV) as a mistress of ceremonies on a one-hour daily program. One of her segments featured her personal hobby: dog training.

There are two stories about how Mary Jane came to the attention of Hollywood. The most often related version tells of a remark made by Mrs. Earl Warren, wife of the Supreme Court Justice, at a "swank D.C. function." She is supposed to have said, "My what a pretty girl. You should be in the movies." She had noticed Mary Jane as she danced by. The remark was overheard by a talent agent for Universal-International who made sure he got the next dance. He offered Mary Jane a screen test in New York. The test was successful, and she was offered a U-I contract. The pressbook for her later movie Mohawk has Mary Jane saying, "And to think I almost didn’t go to the party because I had to work late that night."

The second version has Mary Jane traveling west at the encouragement of silent screen star Carmel Myers (a friend of her mother’s) who then brought her to the attention of U-I. This version is reported in the pressbook for the film Gunslinger. The results are the same: a U-I contract and a name change to Allison. (One report unable to be confirmed is a brief marriage around this time to a young executive of the Ford Motor Company with a divorce or annullment before the contract was signed. Her earliest publicity refers to her marital status not as "single" but as the more unusual "unmarried.")

She lived at first at the famous Studio Club and brought along with her 17 bathing suits (she was an accomplished swimmer) and a "fantastic collection of earrings and sunglasses." Mary Jane lived there briefly before getting a home of her own in North Hollywood. She always followed her horoscope (Pisces) and had a superstition against anything hanging on a doorknob. She listed Paul Henreid and Ava Gardner as her film favorites. She neither smoked nor drank. Her reading material ran mostly to politics, and she wore mostly tailored clothes.

The newly-christened Allison Hayes appeared in four films during her contract period at U-I. Sign Of The Pagan was a Technicolor and CinemaScope 3-D spectacular that starred Jack Palance and Jeff Chandler and was directed by Douglas Sirk. Allison played one of Attila the Hun’s (Palance) honeys and killed him with a sword to ribs in the film’s final moments. Her character in Pagan is a silent one. She played a small role in Francis Joins The Wacs and for the first time in cinema history we hear the scream she was to make famous. She had a small role in the musical So This Is Paris mostly to fill out a leopard skin bathing suit to good effect. These films were all released in 1954. Her final U-I release was The Purple Mask in 1955. She played a seamstress in the shop of revolutionary Angela Lansbury. Tony Curtis is the Pimpernel-like good guy. Allison nearly loses her head on the guillotine, but is rescued just in time.

Actress Mara Corday Long told The Astounding B-Monster that director Joseph Pevney wanted Allison for the role that she (Long) played in Foxfire a U-I release for 1955, but that executives refused. She has said that Hayes was "tossed aside" by the studio. Long, a lifelong friend of Allison’s added that Hayes was not upset by the loss of the role. She was philosophical and "didn’t have a jealous bone in her body." They had probably already decided to drop her before Foxfire went into production. Part of the decision could have been Allison’s threat of a lawsuit when Palance nearly broke her ribs in a rough scene during Sign Of The Pagan. A trip to the hospital showed that the ribs were merely bruised, and Allison and Palance were later reported "dating." But that would have been a heavy black mark against her.

Instead of curtailing her activity, Allison’s release from her studio contract actually marked an increase in work for her. She went from studio to studio in films of varying quality. She did her best work for Columbia Pictures in 1955.

Though she is nearly lost in the billing, Allison gives a really good performance in Chicago Syndicate. She is introduced as good time gambling girl Sue Morton but is later revealed to be Joyce Kern, daughter of a man killed by the syndicate. She joins forces with undercover agent Dennis O’Keefe to get the guys that did it. Abbe Lane is the top-billed femme and has some nice scenes and sings a couple of Latin songs. Lane’s then-hubby Xavier Cugat shows here that as an actor he is a great bandleader.

Allison looks beautiful in a series of evening gowns and contemporary dresses. On-location shooting with members of the cast (including Allison) give a documentary look to the film. It belies its "B" status and is an interesting movie. Allison’s beauty pageant experience served her well here. She carries herself beautifully and is always in control of her appearance and blocking. (One imagines with horror the thought of Beverly Garland trying to cross a huge set wearing an evening gown and carrying a martini in one hand and a cigarette in the other--yikes!)

Actor Chris Alcaide played a quiet thug in Chicago Syndicate and told writer Michael Barnum that in one particular scene, Abbe Lane was to hit a man with a vase while he threatens Allison who is on the telephone. On take one, Abbe slipped and fell on her rhumba maker. She and Allison got the giggles and went through a few more takes before being dressed down by director Fred F. Sears (probably in a hurry to get to the set of The Giant Claw). As it stands, the scene ends with Allison looking down from the camera and a quick cut.

Allison’s second Columbia role for 1955 was in the Copa (Tyrone Power’s production company) film Count Three And Pray. The working title for the film was The Calico Pony and it marked the film debut of Joanne Woodward. This is Allison’s personal favorite of all her films, and it is easy to see why. She has a great role as Georgina Ducrais and wears some great Jean Louis period gowns. Count Three And Pray was a starring vehicle for Van Heflin and was a Technicolor and CinemaScope "A" production. Allison’s character is a selfish Southern Belle who is eventually reduced to working as "housekeeper" for storeowner Raymond Burr (Yancy).

Heflin is a returning veteran who fought for the Yankees during the Civil War. His ex-Confederate neighbors don’t take kindly to his politics. Heflin as Luke Fargo, finds Woodward living in the abandoned church where he plans on preaching. It seems he found God on the battlefield. The advertising tagline read: "Luke Fargo was through with sin...but sin wasn’t through with Luke Fargo." In fact the next thing you know, the town whores come to church!

Most of the screen time is taken up by Woodward’s tiresome tomboy antics (sample dialog "You wanted to be ridda me...well now yur rid!" Think Debbie Reynolds only not quite as subtle). Some of Allison’s dialog is delivered over closeups of Woodward as if her reactions are more important. Not one other female character is allowed a sympathetic moment. Nancy Kulp is made shrewish by dialog that comes from nowhere in her character. And Allison’s one moment of sympathy is reversed by an unnecessary slur of Woodward. Director George Marshall must have had his orders: "Favor the New York girl and to hell with everyone else."

Count Three And Pray is Allison at her best. The scenes between her and Burr are well done and a joy to see. It should have lead to more important roles and good pictures. Why it didn’t is lost in the file cabinets of 1950’s Hollywood studios and agents.

Allison also played an atypical "good girl" role at Republic Studios in 1955 in the feature Double Jeopardy co-starring with Rod Cameron and Gale Robbins. It was an assignment that did nothing to excite interest in her. Allison looks good, but is not at her best as the "love interest" in any of her films. Some reference books list M-G-M’s The Prodigal as a credit for Allison in 1955. I have only seen this Lana Turner vehicle once and don’t remember Allison. However, I do think I see her in the trailer standing with a group of women on some kind of carousel of beauty. Maybe she made it. She must have been in front of the camera almost every day in 1955!

In 1956, Allison made Steel Jungle for Warner Brothers. She also made two Westerns. Mohawk, an Edward Alperson production and Gunslinger, a Roger Corman dog and pony show. Mohawk starred Scott Brady and Lori Nelson, and featured Allison, Rita Gam, and two Johns: Hudson and Hoyt. Gunslinger starred Allison with Beverly Garland and John Ireland.

Mohawk was the larger budget assignment with Allison as good-time girl and part time artist’s model Greta. She is wigged and costumed appropriately. Her dialog will seem outrageous to feminists. There is an Indian uprising and some lively music. Mae (Mrs. Victor Frankenstein) Clarke plays the wife of the Mohawk chief and mother to Indian princess Rita Gam (one of Princess Grace Kelly’s bridesmaids) without a grapefruit in sight.

Another behind-the-bars drama Steel Jungle stars Perry Lopez (a one-time James Dean room-mate) and Beverly (Swamp Women) Garland as husband and pregnant wife. Hubby is sent to the slammer and things get worse from there. Allison plays Mrs./Miss Archer (shades of Nancy Archer Fowler!) a resident of the same apartment house and slinks around before finally being used to identify the mugs who kidnap Garland and then let her go.

As Erica Page in Gunslinger, Allison runs the Red Dog Saloon "24 hours a day" and tries to corner the real estate market before the railroad comes through. She is not seen to any particular advantage in costume and makeup, but she rides a horse and has a fight with Garland.

Writing about the rain-soaked on-location filming, Roger Corman reports good-naturedly that Allison asked, "Who do I have to f##k to get off this picture?" Allison suffered a broken arm when she fell from her horse. Allison claimed that the horse was frightened by a rifle shot. Beverly Garland (the then-recent ex-Mrs. Richard Garland and the future Mrs. Fillmore Crank and hotelier) has said that Allison was tired of working on location and slid from her horse on purpose. There is no way to dispute Mrs. Crank’s version or to argue the official insurance report of an accident. (One is reminded however that later in the Sixties, when a friend informed Beverly that she was up for the role of Fred MacMurray’s wife in My Three Sons, Beverly immediately phoned her own agent and demanded that she too get an audition for the role. Beverly got the role and the once successful series ended a few seasons later.) Roger Corman sent for an ambulance for Allison when she fell and also took a close-up of her while they were waiting for it to arrive--with Allison’s permission and cooperation of course.

After her recovery in 1957, Allison started some television work in addition to her film assignments. In the movies, she did The Undead, one her best performances, The Unearthly one of her most uninspired performances, and Zombies Of Mora Tau where her performance was mostly screaming and staring. On television she did The Web and Conflict among other shows. The publicity photo from Conflict is the first time we get a good look at the heart-shaped ring that Allison wore in many of her films and television appearances. It must have been a talisman or good luck charm for her. It also appears in The Disembodied in 1957.

In 1958, Allison did a film in Canada Wolf Dog with Jim Davis, and a "B" crime drama Hong Kong Confidential with Gene Barry (and the ring). Allison was also top-billed for the only time in her career when she played the title role in the sci-fi thriller Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman. She starred with William Hudson (twin brother of Mohawk John) and Yvette Vickers (with whom she shared agent Jack Pomeroy, professionally that is). Vickers remembers Hayes living in the guest house of Pomeroy’s Beverly Hills digs. She also says that Allison still hoped at this time to make the jump to "A" productions.

Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman director of photography and executive producer Jack Marquette told Tom Weaver in an interview published in Attack Of The Monster Movie Makers that Allison was a ‘great gal...very co-operative." He also said that when Allied Artists saw the finished film that they wanted some of the special effects redone. Because they had all been done "in the camera" the expense would have been too great, so it was released as shot on a double bill with Roger Corman’s War Of The Satellites from The Showmen at Allied Artists.

The sci-fi thriller is Allison’s most accessible film on television and video and laserdisc. It is difficult to measure the plusses and minusses it might have. It is in a sense, bigger than any criticism. Suffice to say that Allison turns in a fair performance in an impossible role (watch for the boom to enter the shot when she and Harry have their first scene at home). Hudson and Vickers along with Frank Chase, Roy Gordon, and Otto Waldis look very serious and Ronald Stein’s jive score ties the whole thing together. It also features the physiognomy-challenged Eileen Stevens as a nurse who nearly loses her hat while getting into the 1958 Plymouth police car. This is 1950’s exploitation at its finest. But as usual, the guy who did the poster should have done the movie.

Allison is great driving a 1958 Imperial convertible, although the car nearly gets away from Vickers at one point. In the October, 1958, issue of Gent magazine, Allison did a modest semi-nude pictorial. The article touted her role in the Woolner Brothers production of The Astounding Fifty Foot Woman [sic]. Allison also modeled for the Frederick’s of Hollywood catalog around this time.

Allison’s father died in the fall of 1959. One account of her life during his period says that she had fallen madly in love with a director who was 5’3" tall (Allison was 5’7"). The director would not divorce his wife and Allison was stung by the rejection. She carried a torch for many years. (Anyone know who this might be?)

The remainder of Allison’s career was taken up with typical movie-factory work. Films like Pier 5 Havana shot on location in Cuba with Allison looking ill part of the time, Counterplot shot on location in Puerto Rico, The Hypnotic Eye, The High-Powered Rifle which seems to have disappeared, The Crawling Hand which should disappear, Tickle Me, Five Bold Women, Lust To Kill possibly her worst film with the funniest stunt doubling I have ever seen when "Allison" jumps from a runaway buckboard wearing men’s shoes, and Who’s Been Sleeping In My Bed. She also appeared several times on Perry Mason with old friend Raymond Burr, most notably in "The Case of the Bogus Books" wearing The Ring.

She guest-starred with Scott (Mohawk) Brady in his series Shotgun Slade and couple of times and with Gene (Hong Kong Confidential) Barry a couple of times on his show Bat Masterson. She did a Desilu Playhouse The Big Freeze and was on Rawhide with Clint Eastwood (who has a daughter named Allison.) She did Peter Gunn and Men Into Space. One top-notch appearance in the early Sixties was in the series 77 Sunset Strip. (Allison looks great as she hires Roger Smith to find out why her brother is hanging out with the wrong crowd. Early on, Smith remembers, he met Marianne Winston at a big charity ball. He says, ‘You were with the movie star." "Yes," replies Allison. "But we didn’t get along, we both wanted to talk about ourselves.") She looks great, wears some stunning clothes, and drives like crazy in big Mercury or Lincoln. The episode is titled "The Parallel Caper" and is worth looking for. At this period in her life she was very beautiful and in complete control of her performance.

Allison appeared regularly on Acapulco in early 1961 costarring with Ralph Taeger and Telly Savalas and on the early episodes of ABC’s soap opera General Hospital as Priscilla Longworth.

It couldn’t have been easy. For all of these, she got up early, drove to a studio, had hair and makeup done, memorized lines, rehearsed, and did her best. But by that time it added up to work and not a career--at least not the one she had wanted when she started out.

Her working days were numbered, though. Allison first contacted Dr. Henry Bieler in 1962. He was recommended by actress Gloria Swanson who had been his patient for many years. On Dr. Bieler’s recommendation and with his prescription, Allison began talking a calcium food supplement daily. Dr. William H. Crosby later wrote that the supplement would have done nothing to correct the problem Allison originally went to Dr. Bieler for.

In 1964, Allison returned to Dr. Bieler with a variety of complaints. The doctor told her to increase her daily intake of the supplement. By 1967, she had experienced a multitude of symptoms. She was unable to walk without a cane and her career virtually came to an end. Her auburn hair turned black and began to fall out. She had wrist-drop syndrome in her right hand and a constant gnawing sensation across the bridge of her nose. She also became surly. Something she had never been. Her friends were worried.

She consulted over 20 doctors and endured over 340 X-ray examinations. Most doctors told her that her symptoms were psycho-neurotic. None were able to identify the source of the problems.

In 1968, during hospitalization for a fever, Allison stopped taking the supplement on her own.

Allison herself wrote:

"....as I finally came to see it, I had three options: (1) commit suicide; (2) go to a psychiatrist to attempt to learn to live with the pain accepting the fact that doctors couldn’t diagnose it; or (3) find the answer myself. I called suicide prevention though I was sure I wasn’t going to kill myself. I just wanted someone to tell me it was worth it not to. But I was placed on "hold" and they never came back to the phone. So I laughed and thought, "that’s the end of that!" Then I said to myself, ‘There’s an answer to everything. There has to be an answer! I’m going to find out.’ The question was where do I start?"

First she got copies of her medical records--a process she likened to "pulling teeth." Then Allison enlisted the help of friends who carried her to the medical library at UCLA (where Gent magazine said in the text of her modest 1958 semi-nude layout Allison had gotten her LLD!!). Because she had lost the use of her right arm, she sat on the floor making notes with her left hand. The technical books could not be checked out, so she would stay for hours, her friends picking her up sometimes after midnight. While reading a book called Toxicology Of Industrial Metals Allison came across a description of the metal poisoning of factory workers. She writes: "...the descriptions of some of the illnesses fit my own like a glove...ultimately I learned the truth; I had been poisoned!"

Strong words, but true. The lead content as shown by later analysis of the supplement she had taken daily for six years was 190 parts of lead per million. As was later discovered, the supplement was made in England from the bones of horses over 30 years old. Horses that had been sold to glue factories. The older the horse, the higher the lead content of the bones. The supplement had been imported into the US in 500 lb. drums and used in a number of products including baby food! And Dr. Bieler was still prescribing it to his patients!

After contacting a toxicologist and sending him a sample of the supplement, Allison got a telegram that told her to contact him immediately. Allison writes more: "...the...call came in January, 1970, on a day that was dark and cold and dreary. My first reaction was one of relief. I hadn’t been losing my mind. There was an organic reason for this. Then the anger set in. I’d spent thousands of dollars being bandied about from one specialist to the other with not a few of them baldy implying that my problem was primarily psycho-neurotic...in the end I had to depend on myself to educate the experts."

Allison started a campaign to get the FDA to stop import of the supplement Its lack of interest was based on the official judgment that food supplements were a "gray area." That changed when the FDA wrote: "We are incorporating health food issues into our FY ‘77 and ‘78 compliance programs, including the bone meal and heavy metal matter. Your case is a key stimulus for so doing."

By then, Allison had begun then dropped a lawsuit again Bieler, when he pleaded for her to. He died soon after. She did win a settlement of $50,000 against the Los Angeles distributor of the supplement.

Allison’s last years were spent in a lovely ocean-front home in San Clemente. She was home-bound for much of the time. A neighbor remembers only that "...she was an actress of some sort. She kept mostly to herself and was very concerned with her diet..." Her mother Charlotte lived with her much of the time. (Mr. and Mrs. Hayes had moved to California in 1953.)

Allison's final home in San Clemente, California.

Allison entered the Scripps Clinic in La Jolla in October of 1976. She was diagnosed with leukemia. The cause could have been the supplement or the many X-Ray examinations she had had over the years. She was released just in time for Christmas, December 21, 1976. She had a periodic check-up on February 24, 1977. Allison drove herself to the hospital on February 26, 1977, and checked herself in to receive a scheduled transfusion. This is something she had done often in prior years. The transfusion was begun at 4:15 p.m. and discontinued about 2/3rds of the way through because Allison felt chilled. She was also experiencing a multitude of flu like symptoms. She was in extreme pain at 11:15 p.m. that day. Allison was taken by ambulance from the Scripps Clinic to the University of California Medical Center in San Diego at 3:15 a.m. She died there 6:03 a.m., February 27, 1977. Her mother Charlotte died on October 1, 1977.

Allison Mary Jane Hayes played strong women on the screen. But she fought her bitterest battles off screen against the medical establishment. She made our lives safer. She is spoken of fondly by those her worked with her (the one exception: Beverly Garland). She is still missed by those who called her friend.

With her beauty and talent and ambition, she became, however briefly, the girl on the big screen--a bona fide movie star. She was smart and funny and talented. She was the quintessential Fifties Hollywood Chick. Her death at 47 was a tragedy.

There is a cross and a rosary on the headstone in Holy Cross Cemetery. It bears the surname Hayes....and two others:

Father William E. 1880-1959
Daughter Mary Jane 1930-1977

Her mother is buried in an unmarked plot nearby. If you are ever in Los Angeles, stop by and leave a flower. If you enjoyed Allison’s films, it is a small payback. 

(Please join me in writing or e-mailing TNT/TBS and ask them to show Count Three And Pray and Chicago Syndicate. I would like to hear from anyone who has a special memory of Allison or more information to share. Thank you! Thanks to Michael Barnum and Kevin Knutson for sharing some of their photos. And thanks to Rod Williams for sharing his medical research in this case.)

Thanks, Jack, for so throughly and movingly revealing the real life of Allison Hayes.  Ironically, a film of her actual life would be vastly more interesting than most of her films.  Cheers!  

Article copyright Jackrandall Earles

Return To Archives From The Crypt