Who is Valerie Vernon?

There is almost always something interesting in the B-movies which Talking Pictures TV has acquired. The Delavine Affair, which showed earlier this week, was a rather leaden affair, in spite of a script contribution by Basil Boothroyd who contributed to Punch and went on to edit the magazine. The cast, even the usually excellent Honor Blackman, seemed to be going through the motions. It was not easy to determine whether this was because of a director whose main expertise was as a production manager or because of a poor screenplay. The author of the Noirish blog is in no doubt: the fault lies in the source material.

However, my interest was piqued by the second female lead, an actress with a slight American twang. She was billed as Valerie Vernon. Ms Vernon has a c.v. of largely bit parts in US TV before turning up in Britain to appear in a Hammer/Lippert Pictures joint production, The Glass Tomb. (She is featured  in the top left poster on this auction site.)

Lippert's deal with Hammer included a condition that their productions would include a known US actor in order to sell the film in the States. In the case of The Glass Tomb, the lead was John Ireland. I surmise that Ireland brought Vernon over to add a bit of glamour to the production and that his co-star, one Honor Blackman, got her the Delavine job as a bit of extra work while she was over here. But there are other possibilities, and I would be grateful for an update from anyone in the know. One of those would be Ms Blackman, who is happily still with us.

Another is the 95-year-old Scotty Bowers, (pictured with his right arm round the waist of Ms Vernon in the picture illustrating this article about him). (It is a pity that the documentary about this colourful character has not been released over here. The allegations about the Windsors may have deterred exhibitors in the UK, but perhaps Channel 4 would consider obtaining it for a late-night weekend showing.)

I write "who is Valerie Vernon" because I believe the dates of birth and death currently showing on IMDb are wrong and due to a confusion with stage actress Valerie Verdon. Moreover, I have been unable to find correct dates through a genealogy web-site. It is therefore possible that "Valerie Verdon" is a stage name. Further information would be very welcome.