American actress, model and opera singer, billed as “the ghostess with the mostest” on the CBS sitcom Topper (1953–1955), in which she starred with her second husband Robert Sterling.
As a teenager she signed with the John Robert Powers agency as a junior model. Her plans for an operatic career were sidelined when she was cast in a staged musical review, Fun for the Money. Her appearance in that revue led to her being cast in her first movie role, in I Married an Angel (1942), starring Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald. She was under contract to both RKO and Republic Studios during the 1940s, including several appearances as Tess Trueheart in the Dick Tracy series, and the 1944 Frank Sinatra musical Step Lively.
When her career faltered, she instead focused on her stage career, playing lead roles on Broadway in productions such as the 1947 opera Street Scene, the 1948 Cole Porter musical Kiss Me, Kate and the 1952 musical Three Wishes for Jamie.
After a semi-retirement in the 1960s, she appeared on television, appearing in episodes of such series as Love, American Style (with her husband), L.A. Law and Murder, She Wrote. She was nominated for a Golden Globe for her work in The Delphi Bureau (1972). From 1984 to 1985, she starred in the short-lived Aaron Spelling series Finder of Lost Loves. She also appeared in Baywatch as David Hasselhoff’s mother, and also had a recurring role in the night-time soap Falcon Crest as Amanda Croft.
In 1979, she guest starred as Siress Blassie in the Battlestar Galactica episode “The Man With Nine Lives” as a love interest of Chameleon, a part played by Fred Astaire. She was the last person to dance with him onscreen.
Jeffreys married twice. Her first marriage, to Joseph Serena, was annulled in 1949. She married Robert Sterling in 1951. They had three sons: Jeffrey, Dana and Tyler.
Jeffreys died on 27 September 2017 at her home in Los Angeles at the age of 94.
Link to Wikipedia biography