Marguerite Louise Skliris-Alvarez (Margia Dean)
April 7, 1922
Here’s wishing Margia Dean a happy 100th birthday! (That’s her with Bob Steele and Barton MacLane in 1955’s Last Of The Desperados.)
The former Miss San Francisco and Miss California got her movie career going with 1944’s Casanova In Burlesque. The bulk of her pictures were done for Robert L. Lippert, quite a few of them Westerns — Sam Fuller’s I Shot Jesse James (1949), Stagecoach To Fury (1956), Badlands Of Montana (1957) and Ambush At Cimarron Pass (1958), to name a few. Tired of being confined to B pictures, she retired in 1960.
She also has an uncredited pat in Superman And The Mole Men (1951), appears in a few episodes of Dick Tracy, and stars in what is considered the first Hammer horror movie, 1955’s The Quatermass Xperiment. Ms. Dean has one of the most all-around cool filmographies I’ve ever seen. All to best, Ms. Dean!
50 Westerns From The 50s. 
Love seeing Margia’s centennial celebrated!
LAST OF THE DESPERADOS is definitely a film I’d like to see – fun cast!
Best wishes,
Laura
I watched COLUMN SOUTH with Audie Murphy the other day.It was released on Umbrella Entertainment on their Six Shooter series,but has now been deleted.There were other copies on Amazon I could have bought,but finally looking through my Audie Murphy compilations,I could not find it.I discovered that it was on one of two Koch Media comps that I have.I guess that we all have had that experience where we think we have a film,but are not sure.Anyway,perserverence paid off in the end,and a pleasant viewing was enjoyed by me with a film I don’t quite remember.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARGIA! First noticed in I SHOT JESSE JAMES, then in RETURN OF JESSE JAMES (1950), both from LIPPERT; and just lately I discovered a forgotten little gem of a “B” co-feature called VILLA!! (1958) A 20th-Century Fox CinemaScope Picture, Color by DeLuxe. Margia co-stars with Cesar Romero, (as Villa’s compadre/henchman), and Brian Keith, (as an American gunrunner);not forgetting Rodolfo Hoyos–who makes for a winning portrayal as Pancho Villa. Running time only 72 minutes, and Margia manages to sing a few songs along the way in the cantinas!