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Faith Domergue

Faith Domergue (June 16, 1924 in New Orleans, Louisiana - April 4, 1999 in Santa Barbara, California) was a film actress. She was of Irish descent and took the name Domergue after her adoptive parents, who eventually moved to California. There she was discovered by a Hollywood agent.

Domergue (pronounced "Dah-mure") was signed by Warner Bros. while still in high school. Howard Hughes met her at a party on board his yacht when she was 15 and bought her contract for RKO. He provided her adoptive parents with a house and began a relationship with the young Domergue. Their romance ended when Domergue learned of Hughes's infidelities. In her book on their relationship, she recalled how the tycoon's behavior was becoming bizarre and unstable as early as January 1943.

After an unsuccessful, long-delayed premiere in the film Vendetta (1950), Domergue left Hughes. Initially signed with RKO, she later freelanced in a number of films, including film noir Where Danger Lives (as a femme fatale opposite Robert Mitchum), westerns (Santa Fe Passage) and in 1955, two sci-fi/monster films (It Came from Beneath the Sea and This Island Earth). Domergue later made films in England and Italy, and a last sci-fi foray in the Russian film Voyage to a Prehistoric Planet, in 1965. She also made sporadic guest appearances in several television series. By the late 1960s, Domergue found herself isolated from major film roles, and her last acting appearances were mainly in low-budget 'B' horror movies. Ironically, today she is best known for her sci-fi acting roles, a genre that never appealed to her. Married four times, she had two children by her second husband, Hugo Fregonese.

Kelli Garner played her in The Aviator. Domergue died of cancer in 1999.

• Faith Domergue at the Internet Movie Database

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