In Remembrance: Aquanetta

     Aquanetta, the raven haired B-movie actress, has passed away in Ahwatukee, a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona on Monday, August 16, 2004. She was 83.

     Born July 17, 1921 on an Arapaho Indian reservation near Cheyenne Wyoming as Burnu Aquanetta, she grew up in the Philadelphia suburb of Norristown, PA. Moving to Manhattan, she soon became a sought after model. Newspaper columnists invented a South American background for her and she soon became known as "The Venezuelan Volcano."

     In 1942, she landed a contract with Universal Pictures and made her first appearance that year in a small role in Arabian Nights, starring Sabu. Her next film was Rhythm of the Islands (1943), a musical comedy featuring Allan Jones, Jane Frazee and comedian Andy Devine.

     In 1943, she was cast in Captive Wild Woman as the end product of an experiment to turn a gorilla into a human. The film struggled to rise above its pulpy b-movie roots and is considered a minor classic of the genre today. Captive Wild Woman was popular enough to warrant a sequel, Jungle Woman, for which Aquanetta returned. (A second sequel, Jungle Captive, was released in 1945 with actress Vicky Lane taking over the role of the transformed ape.) After appearing opposite Lon Chaney, Jr., in the Inner Sanctum Mystery Dead Man's Eyes (1944), Aquanetta left Universal.

     Over the next decade, Aquanetta appeared in only a handful of films. In 1946, she appeared in RKO's Tarzan and the Leopard Woman as the High Priestess of a cult dedicated to preventing the encroachment of civilization into the jungle. In 1951, she appeared in The Sword of Monte Cristo at 20th Century Fox, MGM's western comedy Callaway Went Thataway with Fred MacMurray and the independently produced Lost Continent. Her last film before retiring was an uncredited role in war comedy Take The High Ground! in 1953. She came out of retirement briefly in 1990 for an appearance in The Legend Of Grizzly Adams.