Marianna Hill

An American with exotic looks and a flair for accents, character actress Marianna Hill appeared in a wide variety of films and TV shows but had her heyday in the '60s and '70s. Although she was born in Southern California, Hill's family moved frequently when she was growing up, which may account for her mutability as a performer and the ability to portray people of different ethnicities. She could portray convincing Greeks, Germans, and even Hawaiians, which she did in the Elvis Presley vehicle "Paradise, Hawaiian Style." As a teenager she acted in the local playhouse and later became a model. Her screen acting career began in the '60s with numerous guest roles, including a recurring part on the Western "The Tall Man" and several appearances on "77 Sunset Strip."

Her film appearances often came in low-budget exploitation pictures like "Black Zoo," a horror film from 1963. She employed her French accent on the family sitcom "My Three Sons" and her German dialect on the World War II comedy "Hogan's Heroes," as well as appearing on the cult series "Batman" and "Star Trek." Her film parts grew in stature gradually, with co-starring roles in the Haskell Wexler drama "Medium Cool" and the Clint Eastwood Western "High Plains Drifter," (despite continuing to appear in B-movie fare like the 1973 slasher film "The Baby.") She had a role in Francis Ford Coppola's sequel "The Godfather: Part II," then gradually appeared less frequently, effectively ending her screen acting career in the late '80s.