Born 1932 as Audrey Lee Pearlman in Paterson, New Jersey, American actress Yvette Dugay began her career when she was only six months old, modeling for baby talcum powder. She made her Broadway debut at age seven in a play starring Walter Huston, and began spelling her name Dugay around the age of 12, about the time that she landed the role of a young Maria Montez in Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1944). She was typecast as being able to play exotic-looking characters from an early age.
Universal Pictures signed Duguay in July, 1951 when at age nineteen, earning her a weekly salary of $1,250. She portrayed a Native American woman, Starfire, in the Western film Cattle Queen of Montana (1954) that starred Barbara Stanwyck and future President of the United States Ronald Reagan. Cattle Queen turned out to be one of her most recognizable roles, but Duguay also portrayed a Native American character, Minnehaha, in another film, Hiawatha (1952), in which she starred opposite Vince Edwards.
Her other credits include The Great Caruso (1951) starring Mario Lanza, the film noir The People Against O’Hara (1951), opposite Spencer Tracy and James Arness, The Cimarron Kid (1952), Francis Covers the Big Town (1953), and “The Zorro” as Mariana The Domino Kid (1957).
Her last role was playing the Lone Woman in 1960 on the series Cheyenne. Duguay died in 1986 in Los Angeles, California, aged 54. Take a look at these vintage photos to see the beauty of young Yvette Dugay in the 1950s and 1960s.
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