Underrated Performer of the Month: Allison Hayes

Pulchritude with attitude. That's an appropriate description for B-movie actress Allison Hayes, who portrayed larger-than-life female characters on the silver screen...as in Attack of the 50-Foot Woman.

Born Mary Jane Hayes in 1930 in Charleston, West Virginia, she got her big career break when she represented Washington, DC in the 1949 Miss America Pageant. She took Allison Hayes as her professional name, worked in television, and eventually made her way to the West Coast in the early 1950s. She made her official film debut with a small part in 1954's Francis Joins the WACS. Further supporting player roles followed with costumers such as Sign of the Pagan (starring Jeff Chandler) and The Purple Mask (with Tony Curtis).

Hayes finally landed a promising role as a faded Southern belle opposite Van Heflin in the Western Count Three and Pray (1955). Unfortunately, critics focused on the film's other female star, a young Joanne Woodward. Instead of juicy parts in bigger budgeted films, Hayes got stuck in mid-grade fare like Mohawk and The Steel Jungle.

In 1956, Roger Corman provided her with a meaty role as the villain opposite gun-toting Beverly Garland in his fascinating feminist Western The Gunslinger. That same year, she played an alluring witch in another interesting Corman picture The Undead, which was filmed for $70,000 over ten days in a refurbished supermarket.

Hayes worked steadily in low-budget films and in television, often in thankless parts that capitalized on her looks. She was a promiscuous spouse who becomes a zombie in the camp classic Zombies of Mora Tau (1957).  In The Unearthly, she played alongside John Carradine as a mad scientist and Tor Johnson as his henchman (the film was later shown on MST3K).

But with her next sci fi film, Allison Hayes earned icon status as the title character in Attack of the 50-Foot Woman. She plays an alcoholic, mentally unstable wife with a crappy cheating husband. However, her life changes when she encounters an alien and begins to grow into a vengeful giant. The movie was understandably panned when originally released. But it acquired a cult reputation over the years, thanks to Ms. Hayes' no holds barred performance and the fantastic concept. My only problem with the film: Even with her emotional baggage, it's hard to fathom how any husband could cheat on Hayes' character. She is way hotter than Yvette Vickers as the "other woman."

In the 1960s, Hayes worked mostly in television. She appeared on Perry Mason five times with friend Raymond Burr (who co-starred in Count Three and Pray). Health problems, possibly related to lead poisoning, caused her to retire from acting by the late 1960s. She died of leukemia in 1977; she was only 46.