Born Today - Faith Domergue

June 16, 2021 Filed in: Born Today

Faith Domergue - The Early Years

Adopted at 6 weeks old, her parents never told her she was an adoptee. Faith Domergue went on to become a Warners Brothers contract starlet and made her debut in "Blues in the Night." under the name Faith Dorn. In 1942 she was in a car accident in which she was smashed into the windshield. The damage to her face as so bad she went through 18 months of plastic surgery. She met Howard Hughes when she was a teenager. He was smitten and bought out her Warner Brothers contract and signed her to his studio at RKO. She became isolated in a mansion with every move she made set up or monitered by Hughes. While Howeard Hughes had high profile daliances with Lana Turner and Ava Gardner, she was unable to make films - other than her official debut in Young Widow - and was trapped by her contract. He spent the staggering amount of 3.2 million dollars on Vendetta, the pictures that was supposed to make her a star. The film production was seemingly jinxed, going through 3 directors before being completed by Mel Ferrar. Vendetta was a box office failure, and she was soon released from her RKO contract.

She freelanced at Universal in The Great Sioux Uprising and was back at RKO in This is My Love.

"For the scarlet lips of a traitor's woman - he stood alone - against the mighty Chief Red Cloud and the scalp-hungry hordes at his command !" Tagline for The Great Sioux Uprising (1953), with Jeff Chandler.

This is My Love (1954)

She the plays the younger sister of Linda Darnell in the melodrama "This is My Love" with Rick Jason.

Cult Movie Queen

Faith Domergue's greatest fame outside of her fling with Hughes would be starring in two of the biggest sci-fi movies of the 1950s, This Island Earth and It Came From Beneath the Sea. She appeared in minor sci-fi offerings "The Cult of the Cobra" and "The Atomic Man."

"Can a woman's beauty be changed to a thing of terror?" In Cult of the Cobra (1955) with Marshal Thompson, with the tagline The fangs of the Snake Goddess will PIERCE YOUR FLESH! She replaced Mari Blanchard in the role of the cobra woman.