May Britt on AllMovie

Blonde, blue-eyed actress May Britt was the daughter of a Swedish postal inspector. She was brought to films as a protege of Italian producer Carlo Ponti, who cast the 19-year-old May in Le Infideli (Affairs of a Model) 1952. In 1956, she appeared in her first English-language film, War and Peace (1956); this led to a brief leading-lady tenure at 20th Century-Fox in such films as The Young Lions (1957) and The Hunters (1958). May was bombarded with adverse criticism for having the "audacity" to step into the Marlene Dietrich role in the 1959 remake of The Blue Angel, though in fact May was a far more experienced actress at this stage of her career than Dietrich had been back in 1929. She was subject to even crueler attacks when she retired from the screen to marry black entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. in 1960; as one of the first interracial couples in Hollywood, Sammy and May were the target of nasty jokes, vicious slurs and death threats, but both survived the ordeal thanks to the strong and protective support of industry friends. Unfortunately, the marriage broke up in 1968, at which point May all but disappeared from public view. May Britt made a long overdue comeback to the screen in 1977's Haunts (aka The Veil).