Jane Randolph was in original ‘Cat People

Published 9:37 pm Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Jane Randolph, a B-movie actress in the 1940s who was best known for her role in the film noir “Cat People,” died May 4 in Gstaad, Switzerland, after surgery on a broken hip, her daughter announced. She was 93.

Under contract to RKO Pictures in 1942, Randolph was cast as Alice Moore, the young woman terrorized during a nocturnal swim in “Cat People,” the first of producer Val Lewton’s horror films. The scene is “one of cinema’s indelibly suspenseful scenes,” said Alan Rode, a writer and film historian.

Between 1941 and 1948, Randolph made 20 films, playing a woman accused of killing her alcoholic husband in “Jealousy” (1945) and a bookie who frames an innocent man for murder in “Railroaded!” (1947).

Los Angeles Times