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(April 13, 1927 – May 10, 1970) was a voluptuous and exotic looking femme fatale of 1950s and early 1960s Hollywood.
California native Mari Blanchard was a beautiful blonde actress who almost exclusively appeared in B movies. She was born in Long Beach, California and died of cancer in the Woodland Hills portion of Los Angeles.
In the late 1940s, Blanchard had been a successful print model and film extra. Blanchard was discovered in 1950 after being seen by a producer in an advertisement for bubble bath. With her well endowed full figure and exotic beauty, she was a natural for Hollywood films of the period.
Blanchard soon found success as an actress as well. From 1951 to 1952, she took small roles in a number of films at MGM, RKO, and Paramount, until she was signed by Universal-International in 1952. Her first film at the studio was Back at the Front (1952; with Tom Ewell and Harvey Lembeck). Throughout her film career, Blanchard excelled at playing bad girls and ladies of ill-repute. She concentrated her efforts primarily in comedies and westerns but acted in a variety of film genres. One of her most memorable roles was as the venusian queen Allura in the 1953 comedy Abbott and Costello Go to Mars. In the 1960–1961 television season, Blanchard starred as Kathy O'Hara in the NBC 17-episode Western Klondike with Ralph Taeger, James Coburn, and Joi Lansing.
In the early to mid 1950s, she dated a string of men, including Greg Bautzer, once Joan Crawford's paramour. Later, she dated Mel Tormé before she wed Vince Conte.
After abandoning her film career upon the release of her final film, McLintock! in 1963, Blanchard retired, acting in just a few TV programs afterward. She was diagnosed with cancer in the 1960s and, after a long struggle, died at the age of forty-three.
