Mary Castle, born January 22, 1931 as Mary Ann Noblett in Pampa, Texas, had a short career and a tragically troubled personal life.
Her resemblance to Rita Hayworth got her hired on at Columbia Studios as a sort of substitute for the more famous star who was temporarily retired from the industry and living in France with her husband, Prince Aly Khan.
Castle is best remembered by Western fans for her role as detective Frankie Adams in the television show Stories of the Century (1954), and as Jane Brown in The Lawless Breed (1953). She also appeared in a Gene Autry film, Texans Never Cry (1951).
Although Stories of the Century lasted only thirty-nine episodes, and Castle's character lasted only twenty-six, her role as a female detective and her underplayed chemistry with her working partner Matt Clark (played by Jim Davis) were ahead of their time.
Castle married three times and had several other relationships, none ever lasting long. But her tumultuous romantic life wasn't her only problem; she had a weakness for alcohol and was arrested more than once for drunken behavior.
She and her career continually spiraled in the 1950s after Stories of the Century. Her last appearance on film was as a saloon girl in a 1962 episode of Gunsmoke ("Collie's Free").
She died of lung cancer on April 28, 1998, at the age of sixty-seven.