Ursula Thiess, a stunning and glamorous brunette, was born Ursula Schmidt on May 15, 1924, in Hamburg, Germany, to Hans Schmidt, a printing company manager, and Wilhelmine Lange. Her childhood was marked by hardship, including working as a compulsory farm laborer under the Nazi government after refusing to join the Hitler Youth Movement.
Thiess began her entertainment career in Germany, appearing on stage and dubbing female voices in American films. She married director Georg Thieß, but their marriage was unhappy and they eventually divorced. With two children, she worked as a fashion model in Berlin before leaving Germany to sign with Howard Hughes' RKO company.
Known as "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World," Thiess made her film debut in Monsoon (1952) opposite George Nader. Although she failed to replicate Marlene Dietrich's success, she was voted "Most Promising Star of 1952" by Modern Screen Magazine and won a Golden Globe the next year.
Thiess went on to appear in several films, including The Iron Glove (1954),Bengal Brigade (1954),The Americano (1955),and Bandido! (1956),alongside co-stars Robert Stack, Rock Hudson, Glenn Ford, and Robert Mitchum. Her Hollywood career was short but sweet.
In 1954, Thiess married film star Robert Taylor and abandoned her film career. She had two more children with Taylor and appeared on his TV series The Detectives (1959). After her husband's death in 1969, Thiess became an active volunteer at a children's hospital and made sporadic film and TV appearances.
Thiess survived a benign brain tumor operation in 1979 and married for a third time, living in Hawaii during part of that marriage. She wrote an autobiography, "But I Have Promises to Keep," in 2003 and eventually entered an assisted facility in Burbank before her death on June 19, 2010, at the age of 86.
