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Nellie Elizabeth "Irish" McCalla (December 25, 1928 Pawnee City, Nebraska, U.S.– February 1, 2002) was an American film and television actress and artist best known as the title star of the 1950s television series Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. She co-starred with actor Chris Drake. McCalla was also a "Vargas Girl" model for pin-up girl artist Alberto Vargas. In 1951, she married insurance salesman Patrick McIntyre, with whom she had two sons. McCalla was already a popular pinup model by 1952, when several other models and she appeared in the film River Goddesses, comprising voluptuous young women frolicking in Glen Canyon.McCalla recalled being discovered by a Nassour Studios representative while throwing a bamboo spear on a Malibu, California, beach, adding of her Sheena experience, "I couldn't act, but I could swing through the trees". Her 26-episode series aired in first-run syndication from 1955 to 1956. he athletic McCalla said she performed her own stunts on the series, filmed in Mexico, until the day she grabbed an unsecured vine and slammed into a tree, breaking her arm. Her elder son, Kim McIntyre, once told the press he remembered watching his mother swinging from vine to vine and wrestling mechanical alligators. Following the one-season Sheena, McCalla appeared in five films from 1958 to 1962, and guest roles on the TV series Have Gun — Will Travel and Route 66. As an artist, she produced numerous oil paintings and collector plates, and sold prints of her work. She was a member of Woman Artists of the American West, and her work has been displayed at the Los Angeles Museum of Arts and Sciences. She made personal appearances at autograph conventions, appearing as late as 1996 in a faux-leopard Sheena costume. At age 73 in 2002, Irish McCalla died of a stroke and complications from her fourth brain tumor. McCalla has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 1722 Vine Street.
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