Valley Village resident Gloria Pall, who was taken off television in the 1950s for being too sexy, died Dec. 30 of heart failure at a Burbank hospital, according to the Los Angeles Times. She was 85.
Patch first met Gloria Pall back in November of 2010 when our Faith and Charity columnist Linda Rubin interviewed her for a story about Temple Beth Hillel's 10th Annual Thanksgiving Feast.
The following information Patch reported in July of 2011 in a story about Pall:
Pall starred in a TV show in 1954 and 1955 called Voluptua, which aired on KABC in Los Angeles for seven weeks before it was cancelled due to conservative outrage, with one group dubbing it "Corruptua."
Voluptua was a bit of a takeoff on the show Vampira, but instead of horror movies, Pall hosted romance movies. But the fact that she was scantilly clad and would often undress behind a translucent screen while purring seductively at the camera caused a commotion with some housewives and conservative groups. As Pall pointed out in an interview with KPCC, this was at the same time Ricky and Lucy on I Love Lucy couldn't even be seen to be sleeping in the same bed.
Pall also had a successful modeling career and had many small roles in films and TV shows, including 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Jailhouse Rock.
Pall was getting new recognition over the last few years for her past work and was interviewed on KPCC about her career.
"She was quite openly in touch with her sexuality, and that was an incredibly dangerous thing to do," said R.H. Greene, a Los Angeles author and documentary filmmaker that put together the KPCC story, according to the L.A. Times. "We don't have too many stories for that time that illustrate that, and Gloria's does."
For more on Pall, go to her Web site http://www.gloriapall.com/
A memorial is planned for 3 p.m. Jan. 20 at Calvary Baptist Church in Burbank, 724 S. Glenoaks Blvd., according to the L.A. Times.
