Noreen Nash was born Norabelle Jean Roth in Wenatchee, Washington, to Albert Roth, a Coca Cola bottling plant owner, and Gail, a teacher. At 18, she was crowned Apple Blossom Queen and sent to Washington to promote apples on radio, attracting the attention of a Warner Brothers talent scout.
Noreen met Dr. Lee Edward Siegel, a physician and "doctor to the stars" on the 20th Century Fox lot, and married him in Las Vegas just six weeks later. Their union lasted 47 years until his death.
Noreen's early acting career at M-G-M consisted of non-speaking, bit parts. She left for greener pastures in 1944 and got her first break in pictures courtesy of French director Jean Renoir, who cast her as Becky in The Southerner (1945).
For the next decade and a half, Noreen worked in Poverty Row studios like PRC and Eagle Lion, commanding leads in juvenile melodrama, crime pictures, and westerns. However, none of these were career enhancers.
Noreen's most prestigious motion picture was Giant (1956),though she later recalled not her small part but the friction between director George Stevens and James Dean. She also featured in early television episodes, including Dragnet (1951),77 Sunset Strip (1958),and Yancy Derringer (1958).
Noreen retired from acting in 1962 and went back to study, graduating from UCLA in 1971 with a Bachelor's Degree in history. She published her first novel, 'By Love Fulfilled', in 1980, followed by 'Agnès Sorel, Mistress of Beauty' in 2013 and 'Titans of the Muses: When Henry Miller Met Jean Renoir' in 2015.
Noreen married actor James Whitmore in 2001 and died on June 6, 2023, at the age of 99. She had two sons from her first marriage: Lee Siegel Jr, an author and professor emeritus, and Robert James Siegel, a cardiologist.
