Lizabeth Virginia Scott (born Emma Matzo; September 29, 1922 – January 31, 2015) was an American actress and singer of the '40s and '50s, known for her "caramel contralto" voice – as gossip columnist Hedda Hopper called it – and arresting beauty. She was mainly known for her work in the Film Noir genre, where she typically played the duplicitous Femme Fatale with a Sugar-and-Ice Personality who seduced men more with her words than her body.
Scott began her rise to fame in 1945, when she was scouted by producer Hal Wallis and debuted in the comedy-drama You Came Along. She then starred in several other films, including The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, Dead Reckoning, Desert Fury, Pitfall, and Too Late for Tears. She appeared in a total of 22 films from 1945 to the early 1970s, being the leading lady in all but one of them.
She passed away on January 31, 2015.
Films with pages on TV Tropes:
- The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)
- Dead Reckoning (1947)
- Too Late for Tears (1949)
- Scared Stiff (1953)
- Silver Lode (1954)
Lizabeth Scott's career features examples of:
- Femme Fatale: Most of her characters were calculating and duplicitous femme fatales whose evilness led to their own ultimate demise.
- Stage Name: She changed her stage name twice, the first variation of it being "Elizabeth Scott", which was derived from Maxwell Anderson's play Mary of Scotland— a play about Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots. She later dropped the "E", claiming "Lizabeth" to be more of an attention-grabber. She legally changed her name from Emma Matzo to Lizabeth Virginia Scott in the late 1940s.
- Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Most of the characters she played exemplified this trope, a stark contrast to her sweet, down-to-earth personality interviewers remarked about in the magazines.
