Biography

Red Hair

Height

Assertive, statuesque, voluptuous redhead, late 1960s starlet contracted by Universal, best known for playing the plucky lady bandit Penelope ("Bad Penny") Cushings opposite queasy, milquetoast Don Knotts in his comedy vehicle, The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968).

Her acting debut was on The Man Who Believed (1967). Seven years later she appeared in one of the series' very last episodes The Organizer (1975). However, since NBC had abruptly canceled the series, the latter episode was not aired during the show's network run. It has since been shown in syndication.

In an interview during the filming of "There Was a Crooked Man" (1970), she contrasted the styles of co-stars Kirk Douglas--who had a huge trailer separated from others by a picket fence with a lawn around it and a water fountain surrounded by chairs--and Henry Fonda--"We never even saw his trailer. He spent his time with the cast and crew, ate with us, and pitched coins with the crew." She noted that she had no scenes with Douglas because she was taller than him. "Kirk is very sensitive about these things," she said.

In the climactic prison uprising in Rhoades' third theatrical film, "There Was a Crooked Man" (1970), Rhoades is last seen wearing only a corset, a decorative hat, and one elbow-length glove--the rest of her clothes having been gradually torn away by rioting prisoners in the mess hall. Interviews with Rhoades, however, and with an actress who'd turned down the role, reveal that the scene went further and that Rhoades ended up fully nude. Rhoades said she didn't realize her scene would be so "explicit" until the day of shooting. She just did what the director, Joseph Mankiewicz, told her to do and kept taking off clothes until she was running around totally naked across the desert. At least two still photos, apparently from the movie, support this. The reason the explicit nudity was deleted remains unexplained, and the footage is presumed lost. Promoted as a "cynical western," the film was released on Christmas Day 1970 and did poorly at the holiday box office. The rest of Rhoades' career primarily focused on television.

Producers have a stereotyped idea of what a hooker looks like, and they evidently think I'm typical of the breed. I mean there's no way I'm going to get the role of a mother in a detergent commercial on television. Everyone would be looking at my chest rather than the box of soap. [Noting that her first job for the cast of Funny Girl, even though she didn't sing] I know why they hired me, because of my, ah, figure.