I received a fantastic lot of photos from a Deanna Petrie enthusiast in Fresno, CA. In fact, she’s such an enthusiast, she owns a small museum in Fresno dedicated to Deanna’s life and work. In her e-mail, owner Dana Greene said “I narrowly resisted the urge to call it ‘The Petrie Dish’ but instead went for the obvious, if somewhat sentimental: ‘Deanna Petrie Remembered’.”

Dana told me her interest in Deanna began when she was a young girl and used to sneak downstairs to the den to watch old movies from the 30s and 40s while everyone else slept. The interest turned into an obsession, and now I’d say Dana’s the leading expert on all things Deanna Petrie.

She runs the museum in a relatively small shop front adjacent to her husband’s vacuum cleaner repair service shop. A very unusual mix, but you use what you’ve got. The museum doesn’t receive many visitors, Dana said, but she invites any of you reading this to come see what she’s got in person at 151 Gabriel Blvd West, Fresno, CA.

The images below are from Dana’s catalog/inventory. Most museums, big or small, take photographs of their inventory prior to display for organizational or insurance purposes. I’ve received similar photographs from a museum dedicated to Ellen here in Seattle - which is another gallery for another day!

Dana collected her museum’s objects over the course of many years. A substantial chunk came from the estate of Deanna Petrie, which wasn’t much to speak of. Essentially all her belongings eventually made their way back to her parents in Ohio, and then to the care of Deanna’s sister Pamela. Dana contacted Pamela when setting up the museum and Pamela generously donated most of the items Dana has on display. Others Dana has had to purchase from movie costume & prop brokers, companies that take costumes, store them in warehouse, and let them appreciate (or not…depends on the star!). She combed through web sites and catalogs to find companies that had costumes Deanna wore in her films, and managed to purchase a few. For display, Dana was able to match disparate pieces of clothing into authentic outfits shown in photos of Deanna out and about, on the red carpet, or on set.

The information I’ve provided in the museum piece captions here comes directly from Dana. Perhaps I should begin, however, with some basic facts about Deanna Petrie’s life before Rose Red.

• Deanna Petrie was born Deanna Petrowsky in 1921 in Adelphi, Ohio. Today Adelphi has a population of 371, so it’s certainly “small town America”! Her last name was changed for showbiz, as was so common at the time (and still is, to some extent).

   

• Deanna left Adelphi for Hollywood, settled on being an actress or, failing that, a pin-up model, when she was 17. Almost immediately she was noticed for her striking looks and presence. Clark Gable once described Deanna as “the sort of woman who altered the mood of an entire room with a single glance or hint of smile”.

   

• By the time she was 19, Deanna was a regular in feature films, though she didn’t land her first all-out starring role until she was 21. The film was called Holiday on Mars, and followed a fairly typical “road movie” format. Hijinx abound when Deanna and co-star Danny Kaye are stranded in a small town called Mars while traveling on vacation from Chicago to Florida.

   

• Most of her career, brief as it was, centered around musical comedies. At the time of her disappearance she was poised to begin work on a musical comedy called Westward We Go, with Bob Hope. Many believe it would have been the break Deanna needed to put her in the annals of Hollywood history. Now she’s known only as a starlet who was here today, gone tomorrow - and, to paranormal enthusiasts, as one of the many to go missing in Rose Red. Following Deanna’s disappearance pre-production on Westward We Go fell apart, and Bob Hope exercised an exit clause in his contract to film My Favorite Brunette instead.

   

• Deanna was linked romantically to countless Hollywood hunks. Some of the more notable alleged romances included Errol Flynn (also a guest at the Rimbauer parties), John Garfield, Alan Ladd, and less typically “hunky” John Hoyt. But the spotlight is unforgiving, and rumors were whispered - not shouted, as they are today - that Deanna had a taste for females, as well.

   

• It’s been suggested by more than one person that Deanna and Ellen Rimbauer had a strong flirtation. They met in 1941 when Deanna was filming the musical Raining Cats and Dogs, and for the years between their meeting and Deanna’s disappearance, Ellen invited Deanna to visit often. She was a favorite guest of Ellen’s at her lavish annual anniversary ball.

   

• Many fans of Deanna’s refuse to believe that she went missing in Rose Red, despite the eyewitness accounts of Deanna’s ghostly appearances within the mansion. Their preferred theory is that she absconded and eloped with a publicist she was rumored to be seeing at the time, Pierce Myer. Why Deanna would feel a need to disappear to marry Pierce, which would have been a perfectly acceptable if not encouraged marriage, is beyond my understanding. Why she would have then gone into hiding for the rest of her life is beyond me, too. The elopement theory never seems to provide a satisfactory explanation for motive.

Without further ado, I give you the photos!

ABOVE: Fresh-faced Deanna in her first feature film, where she had a small role as a ditzy secretary to a private detective. The film, Where the Footsteps Fall (1940), was a drama; Deanna and a few other cameos were comic relief, so to speak.

ABOVE: Dana misplaced her larger file so I had to scour the Internet to find another - so I’m sorry it’s small - this is a clip from the poster for her first big break, the film Holiday on Mars in 1942.

ABOVE: Deanna looking stunning and unusual in Vogue magazine in August, 1942. The focus of the issue was young beauty. It came on the heels of the release of Holiday on Mars.

ABOVE: Deanna putting on quite a shy look, when in reality at this stage of the game her innocence was already long lost. Such a suggestive and risqué photograph would have surely, if the accounts of those who knew her well are to be believed, thrilled her to the core. Deanna Petrie was a woman who wanted to be wanted.

ABOVE: My personal favorite photo of Deanna. It’s a publicity still from an underrated film called This Tumult in the Clouds, the only drama Deanna headlined. The title is borrowed from a W.B. Yeats poem, and the story follows in kind. Deanna plays Katherine, widow of an Irish airman who’s killed in World War II. As a native Londoner she’s left with three small children in the midst of an unsure world - war still raging and London crumbling, she sends her beloved children to live in the country (as was common in England in WWII). She remains alone in the chaos of the city, descending deeper into the grief-induced madness and an obsessive compulsion to recite the Yeats poem. In this scene, she reclines on a park bench at twilight, mist falling all around, and observes the skies as London winks lamp by lamp into its nightly blackout and the sound of bomber engines grows nearer. Alone without her husband and her children, she loses all sense of fear - loses her senses period, you could say. Deanna portrayed the effect war has on fragile human psyche perfectly.

ABOVE: From the 1944 film Mother Must I?, which is a musical comedy with a dark twist. Deanna played a sultry siren, a role she knew well because it was the role of her life. Always the sexy one, always the center of attention.

Museum pieces:

ABOVE: Deanna was photographed in this ensemble leaving Zamboanga South Seas Club, one of the many Sunset Strip night life hot spots of the day.

ABOVE: Deanna was photographed wearing this while accompanying Pierce Myer on the town in late 1945, not long before her disappearance in Rose Red.

ABOVE: Deanna wore this to her sister Pamela’s wedding in 1944.

ABOVE: Deanna was photographed leaving the famous Hollywood Brown Derby restaurant in this suit, after lunching with an unknown party.

ABOVE: Deanna wore this lovely outfit for an appearance on a press junket for This Tumult in the Clouds.

ABOVE: Deanna was photographed entering The Pirates Den, another 40s Hollywood hot spot, in this ensemble in 1943.

ABOVE: Deanna was photographed going to dinner at New York’s famous The 21 Club wearing this.

ABOVE: Also in New York, Deanna wore this to The Onyx Club for a New Year’s Eve party.

ABOVE: During another stay in Manhattan, Deanna was photographed leaving the Waldorf-Astoria in this outfit, though her destination is unknown. But while staying at the Waldorf, she frequently availed herself of the high society hub the Starlight Roof.

ABOVE: Deanna was photographed wearing this at a party thrown for Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles, who were married in 1943.

ABOVE: In 1942 Deanna wore this ensemble to a Chicago gala evening for the well-to-do, which raised funds for the war effort.

ABOVE: In 1940 Deanna attended an Oscars party at Hotel Roosevelt - as an up-and-comer she wasn’t at the awards ceremony itself, but happily attended one of the awards celebrations in town during Oscar week fever. She was photographed in this outfit with several high profile celebrities.

ABOVE: Deanna’s first year attending the Oscars was 1941. This was her red carpet attire on the night.

ABOVE: By 1942 Deanna’s career was heating up fast, and she was a hit on the red carpet in this Oscar night ensemble.

ABOVE: Deanna looked sleek and stunning in this Oscar night outfit in 1944.

ABOVE: Front and back, Deanna’s 1945 Oscar ensemble, a bold and unique gown. It was the last Academy Awards ceremony she would ever attend.

ABOVE: Tucked in with the boxes of Deanna’s better known clothing Pamela donated to Dana’s museum were a couple of Deanna’s more personal items, such as this lovely pair of pajamas. As with all the photos above, the accessories are also Deanna’s, but there’s no photographic evidence to back up Dana’s decision to pair the PJs with the sandals and hair ribbon. It’s not an unlikely combination, however.

ABOVE: Another more personal item is this bathing suit. The arrangement of accessories is exactly how Deanna was pictured in a photograph from a Florida beach side vacation she took with friends.

ABOVE: Two of Deanna’s formal/evening handbags.

Rose Red items:

ABOVE: The first item of special interest to Rose Red enthusiasts. As previously discussed, Ellen met Deanna in 1941. It was May, so it was a few months too late to make the 1941 installment of Ellen’s January anniversary party. However, she did attend a smaller gathering at Rose Red in autumn of 1941, and this was what Deanna wore the first time she set foot in Rose Red. Dated photographs of Deanna in Rose Red allowed Dana to identify what outfit was worn to what event on the Rimbauer estate. Deanna’s personal collection of photographs is also on display at the museum. But we can’t give it all away; if you want to see them, you’ll just have to visit!

ABOVE: Deanna wore this dress to the first January 15th party she attended at Rose Red in 1942.

ABOVE: This was Deanna’s dress for Ellen’s January 15th party in 1943.

ABOVE: Always one for drama and flair, Deanna wore this memorable ensemble to Ellen’s January 15th party in 1944.

ABOVE: Front and back view of Deanna’s amazing gown for the January 15th, 1945 party.

Movie items:

ABOVE: This is the first item Dana procured from a costume & prop broker. Deanna wore these shoes in the musical comedy One for the Boys in 1942.

ABOVE: Dana told me this purchase nearly broke the bank. It’s a gown from one of the most memorable scenes in Mother Must I?, when Deanna sang a saucy number in a nightclub.

ABOVE: Deanna wore this in a brief scene in Raining Cats and Dogs.

ABOVE: Only once did Deanna play the role of blushing bride, and that was in the final scene of Raining Cats and Dogs.

ABOVE: Deanna wore this dressing gown in Holiday on Mars.

And finally we have a photo of Dana herself, modeling one of the dresses she received from Deanna’s sister Pamela. The boutique price tag was still on the dress (and still is, Dana simply unfastened it for the photo), so one can only guess where Deanna planned to wear it.

With gratitude to Dana Greene for all the fantastic photos. Remember, there’s more to be seen at the museum!

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