Hillary Brooke was an American film actress. Though American-born, she spent a year in England as a young woman, and learned an upper-class British accent that she began using to get film roles after she moved to Hollywood. The accent eventually became second nature to her, and she was cast as an Englishwoman in most of her movies.
Career
A 5′6″ blonde from the Astoria neighborhood of New York City's borough of Queens, Brooke started work as a model while attending Columbia University. Brooke began her acting career in movies. She co-starred in three Sherlock Holmes movies with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror, Sherlock Holmes Faces Death and The Woman in Green. She was a regular on several television series of the early 1950s. She played Roberta Townsend, the glamorous love interest of Margie's father Vern Albright, on the 1952–1955 TV series My Little Margie. On The Abbott and Costello Show, produced in the early 1950s and syndicated for decades afterward, Brooke played the role of a straitlaced, classy tenant of the rooming house where the two main characters lived. She was treated with reverence by the duo and was not a target of pranks and slapstick. The love interest of Lou Costello, she always addressed him as Louis. As with the other main characters, her character's name was her real name. She also appeared in Africa Screams and Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd with the comedy team. Brook’s other movie credits include Jane Eyre, The Enchanted Cottage, Lucky Losers with The Bowery Boys, the Alfred Hitchcock thriller The Man Who Knew Too Much, the 3-D filmThe Maze, and the sci-fi Invaders from Mars. On September 28, 1957, she played Doris Cole in the second episode of Perry Mason, titled "The Case of the Sleepwalker's Niece". Brooke also played Angela Randall in I Love Lucy's "The Fox Hunt", which aired February 6, 1956. She retired from television in 1960 following guest appearances on Richard Diamond, Private Detective as Laura Renault and in Michael Shayne as Greta Morgan.
Personal life
Brooke married assistant director Jack Voglin in 1941, and the couple had one child together, Donald, then divorced in 1948. Brooke was married to Raymond A. Klune, an executive at MGM, from 1960 until his death on September 24, 1988. Through Klune she had two stepchildren, Carol V. Klune and Donald C. Klune. Brooke was a Democrat who supported Adlai Stevenson's campaign in the 1952 presidential election. On May 25, 1999, Brooke died from a blood clot in the lung at a hospital in Fallbrook, California. She was cremated with her ashes scattered at sea. Her brother, actor Arthur Peterson, died in 1996; For her contribution to the television industry, Hillary Brooke has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6307 Hollywood Boulevard.
Partial filmography
New Faces of 1937 – Showgirl
Eternally Yours – Blonde on Stage
Two Girls on Broadway – Second Girl in Powder Room
