Jackie Loughery, who parlayed a victory in the first Miss USA pageant into an acting career that included a prominent role opposite future husband Jack Webb in the 1957 military drama The D.I., has died. She was 93.
Loughery died Friday in Los Angeles, Webb biographer Dan Moyer told The Hollywood Reporter. “She was like a mother to me and called me her kid,” he said.
The Brooklyn native also served as Johnny Carson’s assistant on a game show and appeared in the Western comedy Pardners (1956), starring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis; the melodrama Eighteen and Anxious (1957), starring William Campbell; and the political drama A Public Affair (1962), starring Edward Binns.
And for television, Loughery portrayed the niece of the title character (Edgar Buchanan) on the 1955-56 syndicated Western series Judge Roy Bean.
Loughery played a cautious shop owner named Annie who is romanced by a tough U.S. Marine drill sergeant (Webb) stationed on Parris Island in South Carolina in the Warner Bros. drama The D.I. Webb also directed and produced the movie.
Jackie Loughery and Jerry Lewis in 1956’s Pardners
Courtesy Everett Collection
In June 1958, she became Webb’s third of four wives. The Dragnet creator had been married to singer Julie London from 1947-54 and to actress Dorothy Towne from 1955-57 (both marriages ended in divorce); she had been married to singer-actor Guy Mitchell from 1952 until their 1955 divorce.
After she and Webb divorced in 1964, she was married to businessman Jack Schwietzer from 1969 until his death in 2009.
Loughery was born in 1930 and raised in Flatbush. Her father, Joseph, was a captain in the U.S. Navy.
She attended St. Francis Xavier Academy for Young Ladies and won the first Miss USA contest in Long Beach, California, on a tie-breaking vote. That also got her a chance to compete in the Miss Universe pageant (she would make it to the semifinals), a car and a seven-year movie contract with Universal-International.
The redhead had appeared on the 1951 NBC variety show Seven at Eleven, and she would show up in four movies released in 1953: Abbott and Costello Go to Mars, The Mississippi Gambler, Take Me to Town and The Veils of Bagdad.
She helped out Carson in 1954 on the CBS game show Earn Your Vacation, in which contestants were asked geography questions.
Jackie Loughery and Johnny Carson on the set of the 1954 game show Earn Your Vacation
Courtesy Everett Collection
In 1958, she starred as the owner of an airstrip near the Grand Canyon in The Hot Angel.
Loughery’s résumé also included appearances on such TV shows as The Cisco Kid, The Millionaire, The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, Wanted: Dead or Alive, Surfside 6, Bat Masterson, Wagon Train, Burke’s Law, Perry Mason, Bonanza and F Troop.
Her last onscreen credit came in 1969.