Debra Paget (born Debralee Griffin; August 19, 1933) is a retired American actress and entertainer. She is perhaps best known for her performances in Cecil B. DeMille's epic The Ten Commandments (1956) and in Elvis Presley's film debut, Love Me Tender (1956), as well as for her snake dance scene in The Indian Tomb (1959).
Early life
Paget was born in Denver, Colorado, one of five children of Margaret Allen (née Gibson), a former actress (one source says "ex-burlesque queen"), and Frank Henry Griffin, a painter. The family moved to Los Angeles in the 1930s, to be near the film industry. Paget was enrolled in the Hollywood Professional School when she was 11.
Paget had her first professional job at age 8,
Paget had a substantial supporting role in Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954), starring Victor Mature, the sequel to the earlier The Robe (1953), starring Richard Burton, Jean Simmons and Victor Mature. Like the first film, it was a commercial success. She was Dale Robertson's love interest in The Gambler from Natchez (1954) and played another Native American in the next year's White Feather (1955), playing the sister of Jeffrey Hunter's character, and lover of Robert Wagner's character.
Fox loaned Paget and Hunter to Allied Artists to appear in Seven Angry Men (1955). At MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) , when Anne Bancroft was injured during filming The Last Hunt (1956), that studio borrowed Paget to substitute and play her role, another Native American character.
The Ten Commandments
right|thumb|200px|With [[John Derek in the trailer for The Ten Commandments (1956)]]
Paramount Pictures borrowed her from 20th Century Fox for the part of Lilia, the water girl, in Cecil B. DeMille's biblical epic The Ten Commandments (1956), her most successful film. She had to wear brown contact lenses to hide her blue eyes; she said that "If it hadn't been for the lenses I wouldn't have gotten the part". She also said that the lenses were "awful to work in because the klieg lights heat[ed] them up".
The film was a huge success, as was Paget's Fox western, Love Me Tender (1956) alongside Elvis Presley. Paget and Richard Egan were billed above Presley, but it was the explosion of the newly discovered rock 'n roll singer's popularity and charisma that made the film so successful.
The River's Edge (1957) was the last film she made for Fox.
Post-Fox
After that, Paget's career began to decline. She went to Paramount Pictures to play Cornel Wilde's love interest in Omar Khayyam (1957). She was the juvenile lead in From the Earth to the Moon (1958), based on the Jules Verne’s 1865 science fiction novel.
A talented dancer and singer, Paget also had a successful occasional nightclub act at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Personal life
During production of Love Me Tender (1956), Elvis Presley became smitten with Paget, who in 1997 said that he had proposed marriage. At the time the media reported that she was once romantically linked with Howard Hughes, but nothing came of this infatuation. A 1956 article quoted Paget's comments about Hughes:
<blockquote>I was in love with Howard for two years, and I don't care who knows it... I was never alone with him in the whole two years. Mother was always with us... I haven't seen Howard for a long time now, because I'm a one-man woman, and I've got to have a one-woman man... But I'll always remember Howard with fondness. but she obtained a divorce on April 11, 1958.
On March 27, 1960, she married director Budd Boetticher in Tijuana, Mexico. They separated after 22 days, and their divorce became official in 1961.
Paget left the entertainment industry in 1964 after marrying Louis Ling-Chieh Kung (孔令傑) on April 19, 1962. Kung, a descendant of Confucius, was a Chinese-American oil industry executive. His parents were banker and politician H. H. Kung and businesswoman Soong Ai-ling. His maternal aunts were Soong Mei-ling, wife of Chiang Kai-shek and First Lady of the Republic of China, and political figure Soong Ching-ling. Paget and Kung had one son, Gregory Teh-chi Kung. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1980.
Filmography
Feature films
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Year !! Title !! Role
|-
| 1948 ||Cry of the City|| Teena Riconti
|-
| rowspan=3 | 1949 ||Mother Is a Freshman|| Linda
|-
| It Happens Every Spring|| Alice
|-
| House of Strangers|| Maria Domenico
|-
| rowspan=2 | 1950 ||Broken Arrow|| Sonseeahray
|-
| Fourteen Hours|| Ruth
|-
| rowspan=2 | 1951 ||Bird of Paradise|| Kalua
|-
| Anne of the Indies|| Molly LaRochelle
|-
| rowspan=3 | 1952 ||Belles on Their Toes|| Martha Gilbreth
|-
| Les Misérables|| Cosette
|-
| Stars and Stripes Forever|| Lily Becker
|-
| rowspan=4 | 1954 ||Prince Valiant|| Ilene
|-
| Princess of the Nile|| Princess Shalimar/Taura
|-
| Demetrius and the Gladiators|| Lucia
|-
| The Gambler from Natchez|| Melanie Barbee
|-
| rowspan=2 | 1955 ||White Feather|| Appearing Day
|-
| Seven Angry Men|| Elizabeth Clark
|-
| rowspan=3 | 1956 ||The Last Hunt|| Indian girl
|-
| The Ten Commandments|| Lilia
|-
| Love Me Tender|| Cathy Reno
|-
| rowspan=3 | 1957 ||The River's Edge|| Margaret Cameron
|-
| Omar Khayyam|| Sharain
|-
| From the Earth to the Moon|| Virginia Nicholl
|-
| rowspan=2 | 1959 ||The Tiger of Eschnapur|| Seetha
|-
| The Indian Tomb|| Seetha
|-
| rowspan=2 | 1960 ||Cleopatra's Daughter|| Shila
|-
| Why Must I Die?|| Dottie Manson
|-
| rowspan=2 | 1961 ||Most Dangerous Man Alive (shot in 1958) || Linda Marlow
|-
| Rome 1585|| Esmeralda
|-
| 1962 ||Tales of Terror (segment: "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar") || Helene Valdemar
|-
| 1963 ||The Haunted Palace|| Ann Ward
|}
Radio plays broadcast
Family Theater
- November 29, 1950 - "The Clown" – Debra Paget, Stephen Dunn
- January 23, 1952 - "The Thinking Machine" – Donald O'Connor, Debra Paget
- February 11, 1953 - "The Indispensable Man" – Lisa Gaye, Robert Stack, Debra Paget
- December 9, 1953 - "The Legend of High Chin Bob" – Debra Paget, Walter Brennan
- July 27, 1955 - "Fairy Tale" – Debra Paget, Jack Haley
- November 7, 1956 - "Integrity" – Debra Paget, Cesar Romero
Lux Radio Theatre
- January 22, 1951 - "Broken Arrow" – Burt Lancaster, Debra Paget
- September 22, 1952 -"I'll Never Forget You" – Tyrone Power, Debra Paget, Michael Pate
- December 22, 1952 - "Les Misérables" – Ronald Colman, Debra Paget, Robert Newton
- April 20, 1953 - "Deadline USA" – Dan Dailey, Debra Paget, William Conrad
Stars over Hollywood
- February 21, 1953 - "The Wonderful Miss Prinn" – Debra Paget