Biography
Auburn-haired, green-eyed, convent-educated Jacqueline Beer succeeded Christiane Martel as Miss France in 1954. Like her predecessor, she travelled to Long Beach, California, to compete for the Miss Universe title. Jacqueline didn't win, but picked up a two-year Paramount studio contract as a consolation prize. A reluctant starlet, she was quoted in an interview, saying "people in the movie and television business think that if you're a beauty contest winner you cannot be a good actress". This view of prevailing attitudes was borne out by her subsequent film assignments which amounted to a succession of stereotypical mademoiselles in films like Screaming Eagles (1956) and Pillow Talk (1959). The Hitchcockian thriller The Prize (1963) saw her in a small role as the mistress of a chemistry laureate.
Better served on the small screen, she had a few solid guest roles in Maverick (1957), Bronco (1958), The Rogues (1964), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964), Daniel Boone (1964), among other shows, but became ultimately best known for her regular stint as switchboard operator Suzanne Fabray, a.k.a. "Frenchy", in the classic Warner Brothers private detective series 77 Sunset Strip (1958), starring Efrem Zimbalist Jr..
Following a previous marriage to Jean Antoine Garcia Roady (reportedly an accountant and/or French instructor), she became the third wife in 1991 of Norwegian adventurer, explorer and ethnographer Thor Heyerdahl. The couple lived in Tenerife on the Canary Islands and collaborated for several years on archaeological projects, especially in Peru, and in Azov, Russia ("the search for Odin"). Following Heyerdahl's death in 2002, Jacqueline has continued his work as director of the Thor Heyerdahl Research Centre in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, and as chair of the Thor Heyerdahl Institute in Larvik (his birth place), which, in 2020, merged with The Museums of Vestfold.
