Julie Newmar

Of all the actresses who have played Catwoman on TV or in the movies, in my less than humble opinion, only Julie Newmar really captured the feline qualities that make a certain type of woman seem like slinky ocelots. She had the same lynx like quality that Simone Simon brought to the original Cat People (1942). She was a natural blond who went brunette for the role. Julie Newmar showed up early in her career (under her real name Julie Newmeyer) in William Castle's Slaves Of Babylon doing a harem dance (bottom clip), but her real screen debut was in Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, she's the highlight of an otherwise dull movie. She had cameos in all sorts of TV shows including Twilight Zone (in the 1963 episode Of Late I Think Of Cliffordville in which she plays a she-devil), F Troop, The Beverly Hillbillies, Route 66, The Monkees, Star Trek, Columbo, and Get Smart. She also shows up in Elvis' King Creole (1958, uncredited), Lil' Abner (1959, playing Stupefyin' Jones), Rowan and Martin's semi-retarded vehicle The Maltese Bippy (1969), Streetwalkin' (1985), and loads of TV movies, not to mention being interviewed for the fairly watchable documentary King B: A Life In The Movies. She grew up in L.A. and began her career as an "artists model", and posed nude in several 50's pin up mags, none of which I can find at the moment, but I know I have a few in the basement somewhere. Judging by the change in her appearance over the years it looks as if she had a nose job in the early 60's. Meow.