Sheila Bromley

San Francisco, California, USA

Biography

From Wikipedia Sheila Bromley,  (October 31, 1911 – July 23, 2003) was an American television and film actress. She is best known for her roles in B-movies, mostly Westerns of the era. Born in San Francisco, California, she began her career in the 1930s under contract with Monogram Pictures. She was first billed as Sheila LeGay starring in 1930 westerns alongside Tom Tyler. She frequently co-starred with Ken Maynard, Hoot Gibson, Johnny Mack Brown, Bill Cody, and Dick Foran. She starred alongside Bill Cody in Land of Wanted Men (1932), John Wayne in Westward Ho (1935), Lawless Range (1935) and Idol of the Crowds (1937). In 1944 Bromley appeared in the touring production of Good Night Ladies. On television she guest-starred in episodes of Rawhide, I Love Lucy, and Perry Mason. During World War II she worked often for the USO, continuing that service until the war ended in 1945. There she met her husband Jairus Bellamy. She is credited with seventy-five films in her career, of which seventeen were westerns, for which she is best known. Bromley retired from films and lived in the Greater Los Angeles Area until her death in 2003, aged 91.

Movies

Matinee Theater is an American anthology series that aired on NBC during the Golden Age of Television, from 1955 to 1958. The series, which ran daily in the afternoon, was frequently live. It was produced by Albert McCleery, Darrell Ross, George Cahan and Frank Price with executive producer George Lowther. McCleery had previously produced the live series Cameo Theatre which introduced to television the concept of theater-in-the-round, TV plays staged with minimal sets. Jim Buckley of the Pewter Plough Playhouse recalled: When Al McCleery got back to the States, he originated a most ambitious theatrical TV series for NBC called Matinee Theater: to televise five different stage plays per week live, airing around noon in order to promote color TV to the American housewife as she labored over her ironing. Al was the producer. He hired five directors and five art directors. Richard Bennett, one of our first early presidents of the Pewter Plough Corporation, was one of the directors and I was one of the art directors and, as soon as we were through televising one play, we had lunch and then met to plan next week’s show. That was over 50 years ago, and I’m trying to think; I believe the TV art director is his own set decorator —yes, of course! It had to be, since one of McCleery’s chief claims to favor with the producers was his elimination of the setting per se and simply decorating the scene with a minimum of props. It took a bit of ingenuity.

More info
Matinee Theater
1955