Virginia Leith, ‘The Brain That Wouldn’t Die’ Star, Dies at 94

Actress also appeared on Stanley Kubrick’s first film “Fear and Desire”

Virginia Leith
Photo by Film Favorites/Getty Images

Virginia Leith, the star of Stanley Kubrick’s first movie “Fear and Desire,” has died at the age of 94.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Leith died at her home in Palm Springs, California on Nov. 4 after a brief illness.

Kubrick’s 1953 film served as Leith’s acting debut, though the director famously disavowed the work, at one point referring to it as a “bumbling amateur film exercise.” Leith, whose character in the war film is unnamed, appeared as a young girl killed by a soldier.

After her role in “Fear and Desire,” Leith signed as a contract player with 20th Century Fox, going on to appear in “On the Threshold of Space,” “Violent Saturday,” “A Kiss Before Dying” and “Toward the Unknown.”

She played the lead role in Joseph Green’s “The Brain That Wouldn’t Die” as the wife of a mad scientist who devises a method to keep her severed head alive after what should have been a fatal car accident.

Her TV credits include one-off parts on “The Millionaire,” “Great Ghost Tales,” “Baretta” and “Starsky and Hutch.”

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