Biography
A striking blonde starlet of the 1950s, petite and curvaceous Vera Day was once hailed as Britain's answer to Marilyn Monroe. Having left school at 15, she initially worked in retail and hospitality before securing steadier jobs as a beauty parlour assistant and hairdresser's model. Eventually, modelling became her full-time career, but Vera aspired to more. Responding to an advertisement for showgirls in a theatrical magazine, she auditioned for bandleader and impresario Jack Hylton. Impressed by her looks and confidence, Hylton cast her in his West End production of Wish You Were Here at the London Casino in 1953. A year later, she landed a small supporting role as Valerie in Pal Joey at the Princes Theatre. That same year, Vera married boxer and bodybuilder Arthur Mason, became his manager, and made her film debut in Dance Little Lady (1954).
Turning down offers for grittier, more realistic roles, Vera was content to be typecast as glamorous girls and ditsy blondes on screen: Mimi in A Kid for Two Farthings (1955), Betty, Marilyn’s colleague, in The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) (wearing a brown wig to avoid overshadowing her famous co-star), Sheila, a local barmaid, in Quatermass 2 (1957), a prostitute in The Flesh Is Weak (1957), and a singer who falls victim to Boris Karloff in The Haunted Strangler (1958). She scored a rare leading role in The Woman Eater (1958), a somewhat absurd low-budget horror film featuring a carnivorous tree and a mad scientist played by George Coulouris. The film is mainly remembered for Vera’s tight sweater and bullet bra.
On television, Vera debuted in an episode of Britain’s first soap opera, The Grove Family (1954). Her later guest appearances included Dixon of Dock Green (1955), No Hiding Place (1959), The Saint (1962), and The Bill (1984). After a 34-year break, she returned from retirement to play Tanya in Guy Ritchie’s gangster film Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998).
Following her divorce from Mason in 1961, Vera married fashion photographer Terry O’Neill in 1963. They divorced in 1976, after which O’Neill married American actress Faye Dunaway.
