Joyce MacKenzie, who portrayed Jane opposite Lex Barker in the 1953 film Tarzan and the She-Devil, has died. She was 95.
MacKenzie died June 10 at a health care facility in Hollywood, her son Norman Leimert told The Hollywood Reporter.
MacKenzie also played the wife of Robert Mitchum’s character in The Racket (1951) and a newspaper publisher’s daughter opposite Humphrey Bogart in Deadline — U.S.A. (1952), and in the 3D musical The French Line (1953), her model character exchanged identities with Jane Russell’s.
A onetime contract player at Fox, MacKenzie appeared with Barker in his fifth (and last) stint as Johnny Weissmuller’s replacement in Tarzan and the She-Devil, with the King of the Jungle battling the evil She-Devil, Lyra (Monique van Vooren).
Born Oct. 13, 1925, in Redwood City, California, MacKenzie worked as a carpenter’s helper in a San Francisco shipyard to help pay for acting school. While performing at the Pasadena Playhouse, she was spotted by Orson Welles, who gave her a part in Tomorrow Is Forever (1946), also starring Claudette Colbert.
MacKenzie played a nurse in Gregory Peck’s in Twelve O’Clock High (1949), and in 1950 releases, she appeared with Marilyn Monroe in A Ticket to Tomahawk, with James Stewart in Broken Arrow, with Ann Sheridan in Stella and in the film noirs Destination Murder and Whirlpool.
She left acting after a 1961 episode of CBS’ Perry Mason and worked as an assistant producer at ABC and as an English teacher.
Married three times, she is survived by her sons Norman and Walter.
