Virginia Leith

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title: "Virginia Leith" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1925-births", "2019-deaths", "20th-century-american-actresses", "american-film-actresses", "american-television-actresses", "20th-century-studios-contract-players", "actresses-from-cleveland"] description: "American actress (1925–2019)" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Leith" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary American actress (1925–2019) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox person"]

Field	Value
name	Virginia Leith
image	Virginia Leith in One Step Beyond (The Bride Possessed).jpg
caption	Leith in an episode of One Step Beyond (1959)
birth_date
birth_place	Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.
death_date
death_place	Palm Springs, California, U.S.
occupation	Actress
years_active	1953–1962;
1977–1981
spouse
::

| name = Virginia Leith | image = Virginia Leith in One Step Beyond (The Bride Possessed).jpg | alt = | caption = Leith in an episode of One Step Beyond (1959) | birth_name = | birth_date = | birth_place = Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. | death_date = | death_place = Palm Springs, California, U.S. | occupation = Actress | years_active = 1953–1962; 1977–1981 | spouse =

Virginia Leith (October 15, 1925 – November 4, 2019) was an American film and television actress.

Career

Leith starred in a few films, with her most productive period coming in the 1950s. Her debut was also the first film directed by Stanley Kubrick, a self-financed art house film, Fear and Desire (1953). She signed a contract with 20th Century-Fox in 1954 and had leading roles in films such as Violent Saturday (1955), Toward the Unknown, On the Threshold of Space, and opposite Robert Wagner and Joanne Woodward in the crime drama A Kiss Before Dying (all 1956). Her most recognizable role may have been that of a decapitated woman whose head is kept alive in The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962, shot 1959).

She left acting after her 1960 marriage to actor Donald Harron. Following her divorce from Harron, in the 1970s Leith resumed her career and appeared mainly in television shows, including Starsky and Hutch, Barnaby Jones, The White Shadow and Baretta. She left the screen again in the early 1980s.

Personal life

She was involved with actor Jeffrey Hunter during his divorce in 1955. She dated actor Marlon Brando in 1956.

According to her husband Don Harron, she had a brief affair with model Barbara Freking prior to their marriage.

Leith died on November 4, 2019, at the age of 94. Upon her death, her body was donated to medical science at the UCLA Medical School.

Filmography

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Brainthatwouldntdie.jpg" caption="Virginia Leith as Jan Compton in ''[[The Brain That Wouldn't Die]]''"] ::

::data[format=table]

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1953	Fear and Desire	Young Girl
Here Come the Girls	Chorus Girl	Uncredited
1954	Black Widow	Claire Amberly
1955	White Feather	Ann Magruder
Violent Saturday	Linda Sherman
1956	On the Threshold of Space	Pat Lange
A Kiss Before Dying	Ellen Kingship
Toward the Unknown	Connie Mitchell
The 20th Century-Fox Hour	Irene Bennett	Episode: "The Last Patriarch"
1958	Sing, Boy, Sing	Stewardess	Uncredited
Jane Wyman Presents the Fireside Theatre	Barbara	Episode: "The Bravado Touch"
The Millionaire	Lil Harrigan	Episode: "The Frank Harrigan Story"
1959	Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond	Sally Conroy	Episode: "The Bride Possessed"
1959	The Brain That Wouldn't Die	Jan Compton	Theatrically released in 1962
1961	Great Ghost Tales		Episode: "August Heat"
1977	Baretta	Sally Locker	Episode: "Guns and Brothers"
Starsky & Hutch	Margaret Blaine	Episode: "Death in a Different Place"
First Love	Mrs. March	Uncredited
1978	The White Shadow	Art teacher	Episode: "Mainstream"
::

References

References

1. (May 11, 1953). ["A Silent Virginia is Discovered"]({{Google books).
2. "Virginia Leith Biography".
3. "Virginia Leith Profile".
4. (November 13, 2019). "Virginia Leith, Female Lead in Stanley Kubrick's First Film, Dies at 94".
5. Samuel Claesson. (January 31, 2025). "Glamour: Models, Mannequins, and Pinups of the 1950s". Sequoia Press.
6. (November 12, 2019). "Virginia Leith, Star of 'The Brain That Wouldn't Die,' Dies at 94".

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::