Cara Williams

This perky, talented, blue-eyed redhead had acting aspirations from the get-go. She was born in Brooklyn on June 29, 1925, as Bernice Kamiat, to an Austrian Jewish father and a Russian Jewish mother. Cara began performing as a child and continued into her teens. After her parents' divorce, she relocated with her mother to Hollywood where she attended the Hollywood Professional School and lent her voice to both radio and animated cartoon shorts.

in such minor fodder as Wide Open Town (1941), Happy Land (1943), In the Meantime, Darling (1944) and Don Juan Quilligan (1945), but nothing to propel her into the front ranks. Things started picking up in the post-war years.

Gave birth to her 1st child at age 20, daughter Cathy Gray (born April 15, 1946), whose father was Williams' first husband, jockey Alan Gray.

She made a splash on stage in a production of "Born Yesterday" and started earning notably feisty, tart-tongued roles in such films as Boomerang! (1947) and The Saxon Charm (1948).

By the 1950s she showed scene-stealing potential in The Girl Next Door (1953) and The Helen Morgan Story (1957), and finally earned an Academy Award nomination for her sad, touching support turn as a widowed mother in the classic The Defiant Ones (1958) opposite Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis.

Married to actor John Drew Barrymore from 1952 to 1959.

The sitcom December Bride (1954) starring Spring Byington had deadpan quipster Harry Morgan stealing many scenes griping about scatterbrained wife Gladys (who was never shown on camera).

This led to a couple of flashy gangster moll roles in the film comedies Never Steal Anything Small (1959) and The Man from the Diners' Club (1963).

When Morgan moved into his own spinoff series, Gladys was finally revealed in the form of Cara on the initially popular Pete and Gladys (1960) TV show.

The program did not last as long as it deserved (two seasons) but the dusky-voiced Cara came off well and was escorted directly into her own series The Cara Williams Show (1964) with the equally personable Frank Aletter at her side. Molded at this time by the CBS powers-that-be as the next wacky redhead to follow in the comedy heels of Lucille Ball, the plans quickly went askew following an unfavorable network power shuffle and the canceling of her sitcom after only one season. With her momentum completely gone, her career went into rapid decline.

She did manage a steady role on the first season of Rhoda (1974), and an affecting dramatic turn in the ensemble film soaper Doctors' Wives (1971).

By the 1980s, however, she had officially retired.

At age 16 she was signed by 20th Century-Fox and began to play minor, often unbilled parts in drama, comedy and musicals billing herself as Bernice Kay. Throughout WWII she was always reliable for adding a little pep and zing to her smallish roles. She played various shapely secretaries, salesgirls, girlfriends, etc.

As of 2020 she is the ninth earliest surviving recipient of a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination, behind only Angela Lansbury, Ann Blyth, Nancy Olson, Lee Grant, Terry Moore, Eva Marie Saint, Marisa Pavan and Patty McCormack. She was nominated in 1958 for The Defiant Ones (1958).