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From a well-known Hollywood family that included her father, actor/director/producer Robert McKenzie, mother Eva McKenzie, sisters Ida Mae McKenzie and Ella McKenzie, and brother-in-law Billy Gilbert, blonde Fay McKenzie at first attempted to escape her familial responsibilities by acting under the name of Fay Shannon. Onscreen from childhood (she played Sarah Lincoln in Abraham Lincoln [1924]), McKenzie is today best remembered for appearing as Gene Autry's leading lady in five music Westerns while under term contract to Republic Pictures from 1941 to 1942. She remained in films through the 1980s and also did her fair share of television guest roles. In the 1940s, McKenzie was briefly married to screen tough Steve Cochran.