Born 1930 as Dorothy Bolton in Vienna, Austria, Austrian-British actress and model Mara Lane studied dance with the Viennese ballet before her family took her to America, traveling via Denmark. She began working part-time as a model for teenage fashion magazines. Aged 18, she moved to London to study costume design.
Mara appeared in her first motion picture, the independently-produced post-war drama Hell Is Sold Out (1951). At this time, she was touted in the press as the ‘British Marilyn Monroe’, though she might have been more accurately described as an Elizabeth Taylor-lookalike. Mara herself disliked being compared to other actresses, calling it ‘a disadvantage’.
Mara had several undemanding supporting roles in British films before being signed by Howard Hughes for a small part in his RKO comedy Susan Slept Here (1954), starring Dick Powell and Debbie Reynolds. Thereafter, having spurned further offers from Hollywood, she forged a minor (but, ultimately, desultory) career as star of European B-grade movies. She made several films in Germany, arguably her best being the melancholic love story Monpti (1957), filmed on location in Paris with Romy Schneider and Horst Buchholz early in their careers.
Mara left show business in 1964 and disappeared from the limelight, having always craved privacy in her personal life. She died in relative obscurity in Marbella, Spain, in 2014. Take a look at these fabulous photos to see the beauty of young Mara Lane in the 1950s and 1960s.
