The Prehistoric Women • Jo-Carroll Dennison - Nika

 Who were the “Prehistoric Women” who made cinematic history with just 17 days of footage shot mainly on a studio sound stage?

Jo-Carroll Dennison - Nika

 

Nika, a member of the man-hunting tribe, burst upon the national scene at just 18 in September of 1942 when she won the Miss America crown.   It was front-page headline news in her then home town of Tyler, Texas … her win was covered in the press nationwide, which was something of a break from the weary war news.

By March of 1943, gossip columnist Louella Parsons was reporting that Dennison was under contract to 20th Century-Fox.   There was some hang-up over some legal issues with the studio and it took a superior court judge in August to give final approval to her seven-year deal with Fox.

During 1943 she had uncredited walk-ons in The Song of Bernadette and The Gang’s All Here, but spent most of her time doing publicity for the studio and selling war bonds.  It’s not until February of 1944 that she is even mentioned as being cast in a film, which is director Louis King’s Ladies of Washington — she appeared as Frieda, but received no screen credit.  

She’s on the road from March to early June selling war bonds and generating name publicity, reminding everyone that she won the Miss America crown.  There’s even a self-effacing PR plant, where she relates how the studio was frustrated that she couldn’t do a Texas accent — her diction was perfect, she had no drawl — and one director (unnamed) during a casting call chided her for wearing a bathing suit, she didn’t have the body for it (it was the same suit she wore in the Miss America competition).

Finally in late June there is casting news that she has been cast in director Lewis Seller’s Something for the Boys.  It was an uncredited bit part, but she did meet fellow cast member Phil Silvers on the set … and the Hollywood gossip columns were alive with the “dating” news.  

In July, the studio puts her back on the road in the “Winged Victory” tour, which would be her next film for Fox.  This is director George Cukor’s big Christmas-season film about flight students who end up manning a bomber in the South Pacific with the name of “Winged Victory” … she gets a “name credit” as playing Dorothy Ross, the wife of flyer-in-training Allan Ross (played by Sgt. Mark Daniels, who was on active-duty at the time and a real pilot), who will end up flying the bomber in combat.

On March 2, 1945, the news hit the wire (AP story) that Phil Silvers and Jo-Carroll Dennison had married … several wire photos followed.   If this marriage affected her contract with Fox or not it is uncertain, but soon after the studio began “loaning” her out. 

First it was to Monogram for one of Kane Richmond’s “The Shadow” entries, The Missing Lady, and then to Columbia Pictures for director Alfred E. Green’s biopic, The Jolson Story, where she played Ann Murray, the adult version Jolson’s childhood friend (childhood version played by Ann Todd), who jolts him for another man.   Her film career is all but finished.

In the fall of 1949 Dennison separates from Silvers and in March of 1950 they are divorced.  No sooner is the separation news in the press when she lands the female lead, Mollie Rayburn, in Gene Autry’s Beyond the Purple Hills, which went into production in December, the same month she filed for divorce.   

Four years since she had been in the movies and Dennison is back. Then came the big news, almost as an aside (oh, and by the way) on April 18, 1950, the month after her divorce from Silvers became final, she is cast as Nika in Prehistoric Women!

After her 17 days of filming Prehistoric Women, Dennison landed roles in several films, including writer/director Hugo Haas’ Pickup (as Irma), some episodic television and then in October of 1954 she marries CBS filmmaker and future producer Russell Stoneham (Cannon, Barnaby Jones, The Streets of San Francisco) and retires from show business.   

She raised two sons, wrote and published her autobiography (“Finding My Little Red Hat”), settled down in Idyllwild, California where she spent her time helping others in hospice care, which she found fulfilling.

Jo-Carroll Dennison left us on Oct. 18, 2021 at the age of 97.  Nika was gone.