THE TRAGEDY OF ALLISON HAYES

If I were ever to be attacked by a 50-foot woman, I'd want it to be Allison Hayes from the 1958 Allied Artists movie.

Often compared in looks to Jane Russell, the beautiful Allison Hayes had a promising career, but despite finding steady work in films and television, she was destined to nearly always be cast in less prominent roles. Born Mary Jane Hayes on March 6, 1930 in Charleston, West Virginia, her father was a naval engineer and his responsibilities took them to Washington, D.C.

Miss District of Columbia 1949.

Hayes graduated from Calvin Coolidge High School in 1948 and won Miss District of Columbia in August 1949. She represented her state in the 1949 Miss America Pageant at the age of 19, but did not place. Afterwards, she modeled and worked for a local television network, then moved to Hollywood to pursue an acting career.

After signing a contract with Universal, she changed her first name to Allison and was cast in her first film role in the 1954 comedy, FRANCIS JOINS THE WACS. She had a larger role in her next film the same year, SIGN OF THE PAGAN with Jack Palance. During the shoot, she suffered an injury which resulted in several broken ribs. She filed a lawsuit and true to the nature of the soulless Hollywood Studios at the time, she was released from her contract. However, her career didn't skip a beat as she signed with Columbia in 1955.

Allison Hayes (right) in Francis Joins the WACS.

Her most well-known roles were in SIGN OF THE PAGAN and ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN. She was in a number of other genre films, including THE UNDEAD (1957), ZOMBIES OF MORA TAU (1957), THE UNEARTHLY (1957), THE DISEMBODIED (1957), THE HYPNOTIC EYE (1960), and THE CRAWLING HAND (1963). She also played in many television shows, such as THE UNTOUCHABLES, BAT MASTERSON, MICHAEL SHAYNE, HAWAIIAN EYE, 77 SUNSET STRIP and GENERAL HOSPITAL.

With Mamie Van Doren, Myrna Hansen and Colleen Miller.

Then tragedy struck. While guesting over several episodes on the PERRY MASON TV show, she began experiencing unexplained health issues that were debilitating enough for her to require the use of a cane. Her work subsequently dried up and she contemplated suicide after her doctors passed off her malady as nothing serious. She decided to research her sickness on her own, and when reading a book about the diseases of metal workers she noticed that their symptoms matched her own. Connecting the discovery with her long-time use of a certain calcium supplement prescribed by a doctor years before, she had the supplement tested by a toxicologist and the results were not good: the pills contained a high concentration of lead in the bone meal that was used as an ingredient.

Chelation therapy had begun use in the late 1940s, but apparently she still couldn't convince health professionals of her condition and it was left untreated. In 1976, she was diagnosed with leukemia and by that time her medical treatments were to no avail.

Allison Hayes died on February 27, 1977 at the age of 46 in San Diego, and buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City.

GALLERY

"ONE LOOK IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS"

Back in 1921, ad man Fred Barnard is said to have coined the phrase, "One look is worth a thousand words". There are a number of versions of the phrase from different eras, but I think Mr. Barnard's fits the bill here.

Longtime WoM correspondent from Horrorwood, Karloffornia was kind enough to provide this photo of the lovely Susan Denberg from CINE WORLD magazine from ca. 1966.

I'd go on, but I've used as many words as I've needed to.

See more about Susan Denberg HERE.

TOPLESS TOPSTONE

The story goes that the young Judy Crowder had dreams of being a painter, but when a photographer saw her work and then met the artist in person, he had other ideas for her career. With a little coaxing, he talked her into a photo session, the results which appeared in SCENE, December 1960. She was 18-years-old. As a result, Miss Crowder became one more in the long line of glamour models posing for pinups and magazine pictorials in the 60s. The feature also mentions that "she wants to follow her sister, actress Louise Stewart, to Hollywood" (another article names her as Ann Stewart).

During her relatively brief modeling career, Crowder was featured in numerous men's magazines such as FIGURE QUARTERLY Vol. 32 (1961), NUGGET, KNIGHT, HI-LIFE and PICTURE SCOPE.

There is scant biographical information about her and it's mostly found within the pages of said magazines. It was a common practice that the text accompanying the photographs would be largely made up to further titillate the reader. If any of the information is accurate several magazines boasted of her 37-24-36 figure and that she hailed from Taylorville, Illinois. Another magazine went on about how she loved clam chowder (!) and claimed she had 20 different recipes. This is likely made up, all so the writer could use the tagline of her name rhyming with New England's favorite soup (see below) .

Her sister's acting career appeared to have fizzled, and Judy's didn't fare much better. She did guest on an episode of Boris Karloff's THRILLER, so that qualifies her as a THH, a tangential horror hottie! Other than that, her acting career was over. I'm guessing that she went back to painting.

You're probably wondering about now where I'm going with all this. Well, what got Judy Crowder as the topic of this post today is a photo identifying her as wearing one of Keith Ward's Topstone masks sometime in the 1960s. If there's any doubt about the claim, while I was preparing this post, I unearthed a second photo of her with the mask pulled up over her head. No doubt, it's Judy Crowder under it.

From a Topstone mask collection.

Most of her photos are in considerably better taste than many models who posed unabashed in their birthday suits. In this gallery, you can see that she was nevertheless talked into showing a little more.