Her IMDB bio states that she is from Houston, Texas. Very pretty. Most likely part Mexican and/or Native American. Prettier than Sally, IMHO.
Reminds me of the 80s SNL skit in which the 26 year old mothers are better looking than their 14 year old daughters.
As with Bob Clarke, I've never heard anything about her ancestry, so who knows? Geographical origin doesn't necessarily connote one's ethnicity. Interestingly, in 1952 she had a small role in The Story of Will Rogers, playing his sister, and there was of course some Native American ancestry in the Rogers family.
But I also thought she was prettier than Sally, though she definitely did not age as well. By the 1960s she looked rather frumpy in the few things I've seen her in, though part of this may have been make-up. However, she looked really sexy and alluring in Captive Women in 1952, also of course with Bob Clarke and William Schallert. Very sexy and revealing outfits, long hair (I assume augmented with a wig), nice legs, really very lovely. And a pretty good actress, too -- someone else who should have gone further.
She and Clarke dated for a while in the early 50s (after her divorce from Mr. Field) and appeared together in five films, but she married actor/stuntman Jock Mahoney in '52, which is when she changed her name professionally to Maggie Mahoney. I gather he didn't have a good relationship with Sally, then 6, or her older brother, though a shared interest in acting helped a little in Sally's case as she grew up. Margaret made a lot of TV appearances with him but they later divorced. I also gather from Clarke's autobiography that Maggie and Sally may have had a strained relationship in the 60s, based on Sally's unfriendliness toward Clarke when they met at a studio one day in the mid-60s, when he asked her to remember him to her mother. But I recently heard that Sally had taken her mother into her home a year or so ago, as her health began deteriorating at age 86. Time brings new perspectives, I guess.
Thanks again for a great post! Sounds as if Sally may been a victim of domestic abuse. Stepparents supposedly are the #1 abusers of children. Perhaps that is a partial explanation of Sally's bad back. Jock Mahoney was in a one of my faves from the 50s, The Land Unknown. Unfair that the guys could be half naked during that era but not the women!
shareYes indeed! I always think of The Land Unknown when I think of Jock Mahoney. But remember that Shawn Smith, the blonde lady reporter stranded with them, did get to bare her midriff and legs from midway through that film onwards, as her clothes began to disintegrate. I can't imagine what they would have looked like had they been stuck there another ten years!
More seriously, I think maybe Jock had control issues. I don't think that he was abusive per se as much as he was a control freak. He had to be a very disciplined guy to be able to stay in shape to play Tarzan at 40!