Theona Bryant

Theona Bryant was born Theona Irene Pearce in Salisbury, Maryland, and spent her high school years in Greensboro, North Carolina. In 1952, after a brief marriage which produced a daughter, she moved to Raleigh and began working as a receptionist for Governor William B. Umstead. While there, she had many people tell her she should try to get work on television. This furthered her already present ambition to be a model, so Bryant took a bus to New York and was able to begin a modeling career. After personally meeting with John Robert Powers, he began booking her through his modeling agency, which led to her first television work on the Jackie Gleason Show as a Portrette and Away We Go Girl. After this, she notified her grandmother in East Norwalk, Connecticut, and was able to move in with her to have a home base while she built her career. In 1954, Bryant was hired by Twentieth Century Fox to tour the country in a mobile unit to promote the Cinemascope film The Egyptian (1954). Bryant was dressed in a jeweled costume and appeared with a cheetah named Flo while clips from the film were projected inside the unit. In 1956, she had moved to Los Angeles and appeared as a Carson Cutie on The Johnny Carson Show. That same year, she was signed to a short-term contract by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. She found herself romantically pursued by the likes of Rod Taylor and Robert Evans, among others. After several television roles and minor film appearances, she returned to Raleigh for a surgical procedure, planning to return to Hollywood afterwards. Instead, she never returned, leaving show business and marrying for a second time in 1967. She remained there until her death in February 2021, age 89. She asked that any memorial contributions be made to the Screen Actors Guild in Los Angeles.