Born 1918 in Valparaíso, Chile, British-American actress Evelyn Ankers was known as “the Queen of the Bs”. She starred in films including The Wolf Man (1941), The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), Captive Wild Woman (1943), Son of Dracula (1943), The Mad Ghoul (1943), Jungle Woman (1944), Weird Woman (1944), The Invisible Man’s Revenge (1944), and The Frozen Ghost (1945).
Ankers appeared in Hold That Ghost (1941), Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942), His Butler’s Sister (1943), The Pearl of Death (1944), Pardon My Rhythm (1944), Tarzan’s Magic Fountain (1949), and played Calamity Jane in The Texan Meets Calamity Jane (1950), one of many movies for which she received top billing. A frequent screen partner was Lon Chaney Jr., although they privately disliked each other.
Ankers made over fifty films between 1936 and 1950, then retired from movies at the age of 32 to be a housewife. She occasionally played television roles, such as that of saloon owner Robbie James in the 1958 episode “Gambler” of the ABC/Warner Brothers western series Cheyenne, with Clint Walker in the title role.
Ten years later, Ankers made her last film, No Greater Love (1960), with her husband Richard Denning. She died of ovarian cancer in 1985 at the age of 67, in Maui. Take a look at these fabulous photos to see the beauty of young Evelyn Ankers in the 1940s.
