Elaine Devry, Actress and Fourth Spouse of Mickey Rooney, Dies at 93

Elaine Devry, an actress who appeared in such movies as The Atomic Child and A Information for the Married Man and on dozens of TV exhibits after turning into the fourth of Mickey Rooney’s eight wives, has died. She was 93.

Devry died Sept. 20 in her dwelling in Grants Move, Oregon, in keeping with a discover positioned on an area funeral dwelling web site.

Devry married Rooney in Las Vegas in November 1952 and made her first onscreen performing appearances the following yr within the Rooney-starring comedy movie A Slight Case of Larceny and on an episode of the Ronald Reagan-hosted CBS anthology sequence Common Electrical Theater.

Within the Republic Footage sci-fi comedy The Atomic Child (1954), directed by Leslie H. Martinson, she was launched as “Elaine Davis (Mrs. Mickey Rooney),” and her character, a nurse, marries her husband’s Barnaby “Blix” Waterberry on the finish of the film.

In A Information for the Married Man (1967), directed by Gene Kelly, she portrayed a seductive divorcée who has a rendezvous in a motel room with Walter Matthau’s Paul Manning that doesn’t go off as she’d hoped.

Through the years, Devry confirmed up as a visitor star on all the things from Bourbon Avenue Beat, Bachelor Father, Perry Mason, Loss of life Valley Days, 77 Sundown Strip and Hawaiian Eye to Bonanza, I Dream of Jeannie, My Three Sons, Household Affair, Marcus Welby, M.D., and Cannon earlier than leaving performing within the late Seventies.

Thelma Elaine Mahnken was born on Jan. 10, 1930, in Compton, California. She did some modeling whereas attending Compton Excessive Faculty and Compton Group Faculty, then moved to Butte, Montana, the place she wed highschool sweetheart Dan Ducich, a standout basketball participant, in 1948.

A yr later, Ducich was convicted of armed theft and sentenced to probation, and the couple divorced in 1952. In June 1954, he died of an obvious self-inflicted gunshot wound in a room on the Sahara in Vegas. He was 28.

Devry returned to California and met Rooney at a driving vary in Woodland Hills, they usually tied the knot when she was 22 and he was 32. He had already been married to actress Ava Gardner, singer Betty Jane Phillips and actress Martha Vickers.

In 1956, Edward R. Murrow interviewed the couple from their dwelling on CBS’ Individual to Individual.

Whereas separated from Devry, Rooney met actress Barbara Ann Thomason and started a romance together with her. He divorced Devry in Mexico in December 1958 — the tip of their marriage was not publicly disclosed for a number of months — and their breakup would show to be fairly contentious.

Rooney went on to marry Thomason, who was murdered by her lover, Milos Milos, within the Rooneys’ Brentwood dwelling in 1966. After her demise, he tied the knot with author Marge Lane, secretary Carolyn Hockett and actress-singer Jan Chamberlin earlier than dying in April 2014.

Devry additionally appeared in such movies as China Doll (1958), Man-Lure (1961), The Final Time I Noticed Archie (1961), Diary of a Madman (1963), With Six You Get Eggroll (1968), The Cheyenne Social Membership (1970), Bless the Beasts & Youngsters (1971), The Boy Who Cried Werewolf (1973) and Herbie Rides Once more (1974).

In 1975, she married actor Will J. White. They first met in 1961 on NBC’s The Dick Powell Theater; their episode, with Powell starring as millionaire investigator Amos Burke, served because the pilot for the ABC sequence Burke’s Legislation. (Rooney was on the episode, too.)

White died in 1992. His sister, actress Suzanne Alexander, died by obvious suicide in 1975 at age 44.