Los Angeles: Actress Mona Freeman, cast as a perpetual teenager throughout the 1940s and '50s in films like 'The Heiress', 'Junior Miss', 'Dear Ruth' and 'I Was a Shoplifter', has died. She was 87. Freeman died on May 23 in her Beverly Hills home after a long illness, according to her daughter, actress Monie Ellis, reported Los Angeles Times.
Freeman also was a painter, whose portrait of Mary See has been displayed for years in See's Candies stores across the US. The blonde and youthful Freeman also appeared in such films as 'Till We Meet' and 'Again Together Again', both released in 1944; the musical 'Mother Wore Tights' (1947), as the daughter of Betty Grable's character; 'Streets of Laredo' (1949), opposite Holden and Macdonald Carey and Otto Preminger's 'Angel Face' (1952).
Her TV work included episodes of 'Maverick', 'Perry Mason', 'Wagon Train', 'The Millionaire' and 'Branded'. Her final onscreen credit came in the 1972 telefilm 'Welcome Home, Johnny Bristol'. Always cast as a bobbysoxer even as she approached age 30, Freeman became bored with acting and turned to portrait painting.
Born in Baltimore, Freeman worked as a teenage model in New York City and was named "Miss Subways" in 1941, the first one picked. She was signed to her first movie contract by RKO's Howard Hughes. Besides Ellis, Freeman is also survived by six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
