Jackie Loughery

Jacqueline "Jackie" Loughery (born April 18, 1930) is an American actress and beauty queen best known as the first Miss New York USA and winner of the first Miss USA beauty pageant, in Long Beach, California. In 1952, she won the title only after a second ballot broke a first-place tie. Loughery, a red head, went on to represent the USA at the very first Miss Universe pageant, where she placed ninth.

Part of her prize package as Miss USA included a contract with Universal Pictures, which led to a career in movies and television. She adopted the stage name Evelyn Avery, but is more often credited with her own name (the name she used when she won the Miss USA title). In 1951 she appeared in the short-lived variety show Seven at Eleven. In 1954, she was Johnny Carson's assistant in the short lived game show "Earn Your Vacation".

She appeared in several films, including the 1956 comedy Pardners with Martin and Lewis and the 1957 drama The D.I. ("Drill Instructor"), with Jack Webb, whom she would marry. She was featured in 1957's Eighteen and Anxious and top-billed in the following year's The Hot Angel.

Career

In 1956, Loughery co-starred with Edgar Buchanan and Jack Buetel in the syndicated western television series Judge Roy Bean, having appeared as Bean's niece, Letty. Buetel, a star of the 1941 film The Outlaw, was cast in the series as Bean's deputy, Jeff Taggert.^[1]

Loughery also had non-recurring roles in numerous television programs through the 1950s and 1960s, including the syndicated western 26 Men in the episode "Runaway Stage". In 1958, she appeared in an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

In 1957 and 1958 she made five guest appearances on The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show; three as Joyce Collins and the other two as Vicki Donovan. In 1963 she appeared on Perry Mason as Nell Grimes, who murdered her husband, the title character, in "The Case of the Bigamous Spouse." She appeared as Martha, sister of sheriff Sam Phelps in the May 18, 1961 episode of Bat Masterson, "Farmer with a Badge".

She was married to singer Guy Mitchell in October 1953. That marriage ended and she remarried, to actor Jack Webb, in July 1958. She divorced Webb in March 1964 and married her current husband, making her name Jackie Loughery Switzer (or Schwitzer); they live in Encino, California.

References

External links

• Jackie Loughery at the Internet Movie Database
• Jackie Loughery pictures at allstarpics.net

Awards and achievements
Preceded by None	Miss USA 1952	Succeeded by Myrna Hansen
Preceded by None	Miss New York USA 1952	Succeeded by Reta Knapp