Greta Thyssen
Danish actress who received a custard pie in the face from the Three Stooges and dated Cary Grant
GRETA THYSSEN, who has died aged 90, was a voluptuous former Miss Denmark who moved to Hollywood in the 1950s in her quest to follow in the footsteps of Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield.
She was probably best known as the lead in the final three of the Three Stooges film shorts, slugging it out with the mad-cap comedians: she received a custard pie in the face as the glamorous assistant to Professor Quackenbush (Milton Frome) in Pies and Guys (1958), the trio’s take on Pygmalion; played a con artist who helps her bosses to swindle Joe Besser out of his sweepstakes winnings in Quiz Whizz (1958); and was an attractive senorita in Sappy Bull Fighters (1959).
She was born Grete Karen Thygesen on March 30 1927 in Hareskovby, Denmark. After the family moved to the more cosmopolitan Copenhagen she embarked on a modelling career. Having being crowned Miss Copenhagen and Miss Denmark in quick succession, she built up a male fan base that included Howard Hughes, the billionaire movie mogul, who offered her film work.
She jumped at the chance. Initially the closest she came to competing with Marilyn Monroe was when she was employed as her body double in Bus Stop (1956). Reports of Greta Thyssen’s own pneumatic measurements varied during this time; some men’s magazines claimed she was 39-24-36, while others reported her as a 40-21-35. There was no doubt, moreover, that while Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield had a certain innocence about them, Greta Thyssen’s roles were a little more risqué and more explicitly focused on her alluring figure.
After Bus Stop came another minor part in Accused of Murder (also 1956), starring Vera Ralston as a lounge singer. The movie was filmed in “Naturama”, a widescreen movie technique, but as one critic noted: “There’s nothing natural about Ralston or Thyssen’s acting ability.” None the less, the comedian Jan Murray was impressed by Greta Thyssen and gave her a job as a busty “pirate girl”, akin to a Playboy bunny, on his quiz show Treasure Hunt (1956).
She subsequently surfaced on the hit show Dragnet and as Roxy Howard on an episode of Perry Mason, and did enough to convince the director Harmon Jones to give her a sizeable role in The Beast of Budapest (1958). In 1959 she appeared in Catch Me If You Can, with Gilbert Roland and Dina Merrill, but the negative was destroyed in a fire at a Cuban airport before the film could be released. She was also the main object of Jock Mahoney’s affections in Three Blondes in His Life (1961).
Greta Thyssen was often seen at popular Hollywood nightspots such as Ciro’s with the likes of Tommy Manville, Michael Rennie and Charlie Chaplin Jr, regularly double-dating with her fellow starlets such as Jeanne Carmen and Vikki Dougan. Her relationship with the millionaire contractor Hal Hays ended when he dropped her in favour of Zsa Zsa Gabor. Hays did, however, secure a contract for her at MGM, although by the 1960s the studio was a far cry from its golden age.
Finally, she joined Hurd Hatfield and Robert Winston for the comedy western The Doublebarrelled Detective Story (1965), following which she bowed out after a cameo as herself in an all-too-familiar polka dot bikini for the obscure Cottonpickin’ Chickenpickers (1967), with Del Reeves.
In the early 1960s she dated Cary Grant, although the romance ended when she gave an interview to Cosmopolitan about their relationship.
During her film career Greta Thyssen married several times, but left acting to marry her final husband, Theodore Guenther, a mining engineer, in 1967. In retirement she became a portrait painter. Guenther died in 2000. She is survived by their daughter.
Greta Thyssen, born March 30 1927, died January 2 2018