Karen Steele

Karen Steele
Steele and James Garner in Maverick, 1957.
Born	(1931-03-20)March 20, 1931 Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, U.S.
Died	March 12, 1988(1988-03-12) (aged 56) Kingman, Arizona, U.S.
Cause of death	Cancer
Years active	1953–1972
Spouse(s)	Dr. Maurice Boyd Ruland (1973-1988) (her death)

Karen Steele (March 20, 1931 – March 12, 1988) was an American actress and model with more than 60 roles in film and television. Her most famous roles include starring as Virginia in Marty, as Mrs Lane in Ride Lonesome, and as Eve McHuron in the Star Trek episode "Mudd's Women".

Karen Steele was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Percy Davis Steele, a Bostonian of English descent and a career Marine who in 1956 was named assistant administrator of the Marshall Islands. Her mother, Ruth Covey Merritt, was a Californian of French and Danish heritage. Steele's childhood in the Hawaiian Islands brought her into contact with the Japanese and Polynesian languages, as well as English.

Steele attended the University of Hawaii and studied acting at Rollins College in Florida for a year. After that, she found work as a cover girl and model. She earned her first money by spearing baby sharks in the private cove on the estate of Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton.

Steele's first acting job was in a radio play titled Let George Do It. She subsequently appeared in the 1953 films The Clown (in an uncredited role) and Man Crazy (as Marge). The following year, she landed the role of Millie Darrow in "So False and So Fair" on the television anthology Studio 57. Her first critically acclaimed film was Marty (1955). She played Virginia and got the part because the director, Delbert Mann, confused her with an actress from New York who he and writer Paddy Chayevsky had intended to play it.

In 1957, she guest starred on the TV program Maverick, as Molly Gleason in the episode "Point Blank" opposite James Garner and Mike Connors. The episode was originally intended by series writer/producer Roy Huggins to be the pilot but Warner Bros. instead substituted an episode based on a studio property in order to, according to Huggins' Archive of American Television interview, prevent him from obtaining the valuable creator's credit. In 1958, she played the titular role in the episode "Madame Faro" of NBC's Jefferson Drum, a western series.