She really does greatly resemble B movie femme fatale Marie Windsor, although I don't remember Windsor ever using a foreign accent. Her tall stature, hairstyle and big eyes make them look very much alike. Windsor was often cast as a villainess and sometimes had short, plump, and older husbands/boyfriends who she'd swindle and/or have her boyfriends bump off.
sharehttp://i.fanpix.net/images/orig/p/9/p9349voavnx5p53v.jpg
http://www.acephotos.org/c14296442/marie-windsor-photo.html
I think I see what you mean, as far as her looks. If they had made a movie, she would be a perfect Natasha.
http://www.acephotos.org/c12241428/marie-windsor-photo.html
Not so much with the fluffy hair styles, though.
http://www.allstarpics.net/0022130/013560176/marie-windsor-large-pic.h tml
One of Windsor's movies is playing on TMC this week. I'll take a look, as far as her voice (which won't have an accent, you said) and maybe even the short male friend.
http://i.fanpix.net/images/orig/f/i/fijs0qxqkwinsjqn.jpg
Thanks, that's interesting.
http://i.fanpix.net/images/orig/r/y/ryucia6itrcfi6rc.jpg
For short and/or dumpy leading men it would be "While The City Sleeps", "Two Dollar Bettor", and "The Killing". In "Outpost In Morocco" (a pretty decent Foreign Legion film made on location)she plays a sympathetic rather than a villainous character. Her leading man is George Raft who's about twice her age and noticeably shorter. In "Abbott and Costello Meet The Mummy" she plays a Mata Hari type, but without an accent. There's a really funny scene where she tries to seduce Costello---whose chin seems to be stuck in her cleavage. It's just as well it doesn't come to pass. Her endgame is to cut him open with a butcher knife.
shareCorrection: I think the first one should be "The City That Never Sleeps".
shareSo far, I have seen parts of The Outfit, Cahill US Marshall, and George Washington Slept Here.
"Cahill" really can't count - she is too wholesome as the innkeeper (only saw the beginning, though). She looks like someone's nice aunt.
"The Outfit", yes very attractive, because as the barkeeper she has this seedy/shady/underworld-moll personality that really stamps her as a forbidden fruit. There's a bit of the Natasha there. I have to admit, in that movie she is just my type. (If you saw a picture of my wife, you'd understand.)
But really I need to see her in a 1940s 1950s role. I did not see her in GWSH, but she's supposed to be an "extra in the train station" scene.
Definately need to see the Abbott and Constello movie. Considering that we are talking about someone who designed a cartoon, that would be the most likely influence.
Got a copy of "The Girl in Black Stockings" and yup, looks like Natasha.
But when I see the Mummy movie, that should clinch it.
Took a while, but the video is available here.
http://www.veoh.com/watch/v19289356PcpmMnF9
(Didn't need the download ... the first five minutes play without it, and Windsor enters and says her lines at the four minute mark.)
She really, really does look like Natasha here, and has a spooky way of talking that does suggest an accent. But not a Slavic one.
Glad no one looks at this. It seems to be my own private area to store Marie Windsor notes!
Just saw "The Story of Mankind" a week ago, and the "short husband" thing really came through, as well as Marie's big BIG, round ROUND eyes. He was Napoleon (played by Dennis Hopper!) and she was Josephine.
Not too long ago, I recognized her in the 1948 version of The Three Musketeers. Not a speaking part, but she was enough of an actress that she got her points across without speaking. (She was a spy for the bad guys.)
I have got to sit through "Swamp Women" sometime soon. Not the MST3K version.