Virginia Christine

Virginia has a long career as a character actress on the screen, but she will always be best remembered as the Swedish "Mrs. Olsen", who somehow knew everything about making coffee, and we somehow always found her in the kitchen of some hapless young housewife who just couldn't seem to make good coffee. Mrs. Olsen taught these women how to do so, as long as it involved using "Mountain Grown" Folger's brand Coffee. For some reason only Mrs. Olsen knew, no other kind of coffee you could buy was any good. And if you believe her, I have some land you'll be interested in!Virginia was born in the small Iowa town of Stanton, which later converted its water tower to resemble a coffee pot in honor of its most famous citizen. When her family moved to Los Angeles, Virginia worked in radio while attending the University of California, Los Angeles. She was trained for a theatrical career by actor/director Fritz Feld, whom she married in 1940.

In 1942, she signed a contract with Warner Bros. and started appearing in various films.

Her first film was, Edge of Darkness (1943), in which she played a Norwegian peasant girl called "Miss Olson".

Over the years, she appeared in prestigious films such as High Noon (1952) and Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) - to horror in The Mummy's Curse (1944) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). She was a favorite of Stanley Kramer, appearing in a number of his films.

Best-known to Americans as "Mrs. Olsen" in Folgers Coffee TV commercials in the 1960s/70s. Fans who knew little of her earlier film career were surprised to find that, even though she was raised in heavily Scandinavian communities in Iowa, she had no accent.