Deborah Walley

Deborah Walley (August 12, 1941 – May 10, 2001) was an American actress noted for playing the title role in Gidget Goes Hawaiian and appearing in several beach party films. Early years She was born Deborah Edith Walley in Bridgeport, Connecticut, to Ice Capades skating stars and choreographers Nathan and Edith Walley. When she was three years old, she made her first public appearance at Madison Square Garden.

Walley attended Central High School in Bridgeport. In her teens, she decided to pursue a career in acting.

She studied acting at New York City's American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Career Early film career Walley was discovered by agent Joyce Selznick while performing in a production of Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters, and she soon made her Hollywood film debut as Gidget in 1961's Gidget Goes Hawaiian. She was reluctant to take the role, as she recounted to interviewer Sharyn Peacocke: "I was this kind of snobby New York actress involved with the Actors Studio, and I felt all my friends would think I was selling out. I had a very low opinion of Hollywood at the time -- which I admit now was a totally distorted picture -- but it wasn't what I wanted. This was going to really mark my career, and take it in a direction that I was really not wanting to go. But of course I couldn't get out of it. I ended up working with some wonderful people like Carl Reiner and Peggy Cass and Jeff Donnell, and a lot of people coming from theater backgrounds, like Michael Callan. I realized that all Hollywood actors hadn't sold out -- there were some really good actors, and it was just a totally different medium that was new to me."

Gidget Goes Hawaiian was popular and established Walley as a name among teenage fans and she won the Photoplay award for Favorite Female Newcomer.

She appeared in The Young Lovers (1964) for MGM.

Walley signed a contract with American International Pictures, where her husband John Ashley had worked for a number of years. Filmink wrote "As someone with a beach party/Disney heritage, Walley fitted right in to AIP’s style and she was used by the studio as a sort of back up Annette Funicello, i.e. playing nice, straight girls who flirted with the main boy and kept a cool head while mayhem happened around them – though her characters were never as marriage obsessed as Funicello’s." followed by the lead role in the science-fiction film The Bubble (1966).

Television Walley guest-starred on Burke's Law ("Who Killed Andy Zygmunt?"), The Greatest Show on Earth ("This Train Don't Stop Till It Gets There"), Wagon Train ("The Nancy Styles Story") and Gomer Pyle: USMC ("Lies, Lies, Lies"), The Men from Shiloh ("With Love, Bullets and Valentines"), Off to See the Wizard ("Rhino") and Love, American Style. Filmink argued "Walley was considered part of an earlier, squarer time and could never make the leap to New Hollywood." Actress Kay Cole had played Suzie in the original pilot, but Walley replaced her for the series' two seasons on the air.

Walley worked as an art director on The Courtship of Eddie's Father and an episode of The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. ("The Double-O-Nothing Affair").

Walley appeared on television in episodes of Naked City ("To Walk in Silence ") and Route 66 ("Ten Drops of Water").

Walley moved to Sedona, Arizona in 1991 to focus on raising her family while writing and producing. She cofounded Pied Piper Productions, a nonprofit theater company for children, and was a cofounder of the Sedona Children's Theater.

She published her first book, Grandfather's Good Medicine, in 1993, which was based on the plot of The Legend of Seeks-To-Hunt-Great. She also wrote scripts and taught acting and production techniques to American Indians through her Swiftwind Productions company, and she continued to produce and appear in plays.

Personal life and death Walley's first marriage was to John Reynolds, with whom she had a son named Justin. From 1962 to 1966,

Filmography

Film

Television