Marguerite Louise Skliris-Alvarez (née Skliris; born April 7, 1922), known as Margia Dean, is an American former beauty queen and stage and screen actress of Greek descent, who had a successful career in Hollywood films during the 1940s until the early 1960s.
She was born in Chicago, Illinois but moved to San Francisco, California with her parents at a young age. She began acting at the age of 7, appearing on stage in many child roles and later won the Women's National Shakespeare Contest for her role as Juliet in a production of Romeo and Juliet. She also took up modelling and was named "Miss San Francisco" and "Miss California" in 1939. She was a top-five runner-up to Patricia Donnelly in the "Miss America 1939" competition.
She made her feature film debut in Casanova in Burlesque (1944) and adopted her stage name, Margia Dean. Although never under contract to a studio, most of the films, some 16 in all, she made were for the producer Robert L. Lippert. Her first leading role was in Shep Come Home (1948) and roles followed in Red Desert (1949), FBI Girl (1951), The Lonesome Trail (1955), Villa!! (1958) and Seven Women from Hell (1961).[citation needed] Dean starred in a 1958 western, Ambush at Cimarron Pass, that featured Clint Eastwood in one of his earliest film roles. She also portrayed a trapeze artist in the 1961 circus tale The Big Show, which starred Esther Williams and Robert Vaughn.[citation needed]

Return to Margia Dean Autograph Profile