Welcome to 2026! Our blog theme this month is “Worth a Million.” We are learning about the careers of several cast members from How to Marry a Millionaire. This show debuted in 1957 and aired for two years.
The show was based on a movie that came out in 1953 starring Marilyn Monroe. The stars were Merry Anders, Barbara Eden, and Lori Nelson. Nelson was not happy with her role. She felt Anders got all the wisecrack comments as the smart girl and Eden got all the funny lines as the bombshell, while she was overlooked. There is a discrepancy whether she quit or was fired, but either way, she did not return for season two. Lisa Gaye was the new roommate Gwen Kirby, but hopefully she did not pay too much to sublet, because after thirteen episodes, the show was cancelled.
Like Jimmy Cross, who we learned about last week, Gaye never was part of another cast again, but she was busy during the sixties, amassing almost 100 credits. Her last appearance was on The Mod Squad in 1970, her only seventies appearance.
Gaye was born in Colorado in 1935. I’m sure she was influenced by both parents—her mother was an actress, and her father was an artist. In the late thirties, the family moved to Los Angeles. Gaye’s mother was determined to get all of her children an acting career after their daughter Teala was signed by Paramount. (Her siblings include Teala Loring (32 credits), Debra Paget (45 credits), and Frank Griffin (78 credits primarily for make-up).
Gaye made her first appearance at age 7, and by age 17, she was offered a seven-year contract with Universal. She jumped back and forth from movies to television during her career.
Her other recurring role was as a model in Love That Bob. Lisa did an interview (http://www.westernclippings.com/interview/lisagaye) and she was asked about her favorite directors. I was surprised to read that she chose Bob Cummings. She said Bob not only starred in the show but often directed episodes. She said “He had terrific timing for comedy; he understood comedy. He knew what he wanted and sometimes there would be take after take until he got it right. He taught me a lot.” It surprised me because typically when I read comments about Cummings, they are more negative than positive.
For example, Julie Newmar didn’t feel that Cummings was the right actor for her costar on My Living Doll. She said that “They originally wanted Efrem Zimbalist Jr. It was not a flip part—it needed a straight actor who could play opposite this bizarre creature so the comedy would come off. That quality was lost when they hired Bob. The show could have been wonderful. I think it would have run for many seasons had they hired Efrem because he had the right qualities.”
I couldn’t find much about Gaye’s thoughts on How to Marry a Millionaire. She did mention that in the early days of television there often weren’t hairdressers or make-up artists, and the actors had to do that themselves.
In an interview for the Television Academy, Everett Greenbaum said How to Marry a Millionaire was the worst collaboration he ever did. He inherited a writing partner, Milt Pascal, and said they did not work the same way at all. For example, if there was a horse in the scene, Milt would say, “Let’s come up with three horse jokes to write the scene around.” Greenbaum then wrote his own script for the show. Since Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn had just done Desk Set and had a computer available, Greenbaum wrote an episode about the computer choosing dates for the girls.
Barbara Eden talked a bit about the show in her interview with the Academy also. She said it was her finishing school. She mentioned that she liked Lisa Gaye very much. She said it was a hard job though. They had to wear very high-heeled shoes and be on the set for thirteen hours a day.
Eden was asked why the series was cancelled. She thought it was because it was a syndicated show that was being filmed to transition to a fourth television network that Fox was trying to establish at the time. When it became obvious that there wasn’t going to be a fourth network, all those shows were canceled.
In 1955 Gaye married Bently Ware and they were together until his death in 1977.
Gaye’s career might have been much different in 1961. She auditioned for the role of Anita in the film version of West Side Story and was seriously considered for the part, but the role eventually went to Rita Moreno. She did have a film career, but her roles were not major ones and the movies were good, but not necessarily Oscar quality. She was in The Glenn Miller Story, Rock Around the Clock, and Shake, Rattle & Roll. In the Miller biopic, she was part of a screaming crowd, but she was able to use more skills in other movies. Gaye loved dancing and originally wanted to be a ballerina.
Gaye described what it was like to be at Universal at that time. She said it was the only studio where you were given lessons in drama, singing, dancing, fencing, horseback riding. She said, “it was awesome . . . and you got paid to learn.”
If Gaye wanted to talk about a day that might have changed her life, she might have mentioned a day in 1958. She said she was working with Steve McQueen on Wanted: Dead or Alive. As she tells the story, “We were shooting on the back lot and he asked me if I’d like a ride back to the soundstage, on his motorcycle. So, I certainly said ‘Sure.’ I made a big mistake by getting on his motorcycle. We went all over that lot, and not at a slow pace! He didn’t slow down—he was always on the cutting edge. We zoomed right up to the soundstage where the doors were closed. He had it arranged that someone inside would open them at the last minute, but I thought we were goners for sure. After that ride, I said, ‘Thank you,’ and never rode with him again.”
She also discussed another close call when she was appearing on The Wild Wild West in an episode titled “The Night of the Falcon.” She was supposed to ride a horse with the falcon. She declined. She said she would ride the horse or handle the falcon but not both. So, her stunt double was given the task. Gaye had to sit on a ladder, so it looked like she was on a horse. When she was sitting up there, she noticed the trainer looked rough and she assumed he had gone through a windshield because he had stitches all over his face. Her double was riding the horse with the bird when it screeched, causing the horse to rear up and throw her double. She later learned that the falcon attacked his trainer, chewing up his face.
While Gaye didn’t have a recurring role on Death Valley Days, she was on it more than any other actor, nine times. She said she liked the fact that the stories were all true. She had another close call on that series as well. She was on a horse when it was spooked and was dragged for some distance. There was a wrangler who was supposed to catch the horse if it took off, but the horse ran over the wrangler; luckily, she was full of mud but okay.
Lisa said in the late sixties her career seemed to hit a rock. She didn’t know why, but she never worked again. She said after her husband passed away, she went to Houston to help her daughter who had six kids. She said she became a receptionist at the local religious TV station for 19 years.
It’s too bad that Lisa’s career hit a wall, but it sounds like she enjoyed being able to help raise her grandchildren. After such a successful couple of decades, it’s hard to know why she suddenly was not receiving any offers.
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