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The Tennessee-born Snowden (real name: Martha Lee Estes) was a model and TV bit player who first made a splash on a Jack Benny TV show, sashaying across a stage at the San Diego Naval base. Twenty thousand sailors gave the curvy sweater-clad starlet a standing ovation that made headlines in "Variety", and every talent scout in Hollywood was on Snowden's trail the very next morning. Three days later, she was hired to make her film debut in director Robert Aldrich 's obtuse crime classic Kiss Me Deadly (1955) (Aldrich expanded her bit part and gave her featured billing). In January 1955, she signed a seven-year contract with Universal, beginning by playing up her Dixie drawl in their glossy soap opera All That Heaven Allows (1955). She got Universal's usual cheesecake buildup while playing many of her early roles in fantasy or SF programmers: Francis in the Navy (1955), The Creature Walks Among Us (1956) and the Bridey Murphy-inspired I've Lived Before (1956). In September 1956, Snowden married Dick Contino , a big-name singer/accordion player, after which she retired from acting. Mother to five children from two marriages, she died of cancer at age 51.
She met her husband-to-be Dick Contino at a party given by Tony Curtis to celebrate the first TV show performance of Rory Calhoun . Within three months, she and Contino got married. After a year, with the arrival of their first child, she chose to be a stay-at-home mom who cared mostly about her family. She hated housework but enjoyed cooking.