Colleen Miller

The daughter of Elias and Lillian Miller,^[3] she was born in Yakima, Washington, and raised in Portland, Oregon.^[4][5] Miller attended Lincoln High School in Portland^[3] and graduated at age fifteen.^[4] In 1949, she was chosen "Miss Portland".^[3] Her mother named her after actress Colleen Moore.^[6]

As a child, Miller studied ballet, but when she was older she changed to popular dancing.^[6] After graduating, she worked as a professional dancer in a San Francisco ballet company, and relocated to Las Vegas after three seasons to work at the Flamingo.^[5]

While dancing in Las Vegas, Miller was spotted by a talent agent who signed her to a contract with Howard Hughes for his RKO Pictures company.^[5] She was 19 when she made her first film appearance in The Las Vegas Story, starring Jane Russell.^[5] She shared top billing with Rory Calhoun in her next film, a western titled Four Guns to the Border, which co-starred Nina Foch.^[5] She then had a leading role in Playgirl as a young Midwestern girl who comes to New York City to be a model and ends up involved in a shooting and a scandal. She then was signed by Universal Pictures, where she co-starred with Tony Curtis in two films, The Purple Mask and The Rawhide Years.^[7]

Miller made one more film after 1958, a western titled Gunfight at Comanche Creek opposite Audie Murphy, before retiring from acting.^[8] She has an uncredited bit part in 1972's Stand Up and Be Counted.

On January 20, 1955, Miller married camera manufacturer Ted Briskin.^[9] They remained wed until 1975.^[4] She married Walter Ralphs, an heir to the Ralphs supermarket chain, in 1976, until his death in 2010. She currently resides in California.^{[citation needed]}