The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

ALLBRITTON, LOUISE (1920–1979).

Motion-picture actor Louise Allbritton was born on July 3, 1920, in Oklahoma City to Leonard L. and Pearl C. Greer Allbritton. The Allbritton family actually lived in Wichita Falls, Texas, in 1920 at the time of Louise's birth. Her parents had resided in Oklahoma for several years after their marriage, and Pearl C. Allbritton's parents, Jesse E. and Elizabeth Greer, still lived there. Named Pearl Louise Allbritton, the future star grew up in Wichita Falls. After finishing high school there, she returned to Oklahoma and studied journalism at the University of Oklahoma from 1935 to 1938.

By 1940, her name shortened to just Louise, Allbritton had moved to California to try her hand at acting. Her early experiences came at the Pasadena Playhouse. According to an interview that she gave in 1956, she had originally intended to direct, but she acted in forty plays before being tapped in 1942 by Universal Studios for motion pictures. In that year she appeared in Parachute Nurse, Danger in the Pacific, Not a Ladies' Man, Pittsburgh (with Marlene Dietrich, Randolph Scott, and John Wayne), and other features. She worked steadily in the 1940s in films that included Son of Dracula (1943, with Oklahoma-born Lon Chaney, Jr.), and The Egg and I (1947, Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert). In 1949 she appeared in The Doolins of Oklahoma (with Randolph Scott). In the 1950s and early 1960s she often appeared in "playhouse"-type television series.

Louise Allbritton married three times, her third husband being the renowned reporter Charles Collingwood, whom she wed in 1946. She retired from acting in 1949 and afterward traveled with her husband. She died in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, on February 16, 1979.

Dianna Everett