Vera Day was a petite, buxom blonde starlet of the 1950s, touted as Britain's answer to Marilyn Monroe. She dropped out of school at the age of 15 and attempted various careers, including retail, hospitality, and beauty parlour assistant and hairdresser's model. Modelling became her full-time occupation, but Vera had loftier ambitions.
She answered an ad for showgirls in a theatrical publication and auditioned for bandleader and impresario Jack Hylton. Hylton was impressed by her looks and self-assurance, casting her in his West End stage production of Wish You Were Here at the London Casino in 1953. This was followed by a small supporting part in Pal Joey at the Princes Theatre the following year.
In 1954, Vera made her motion picture debut in Dance Little Lady, and the same year she married pugilist and bodybuilder Arthur Mason, becoming his manager. She resisted offers for grittier, more down-to-earth roles, preferring to be typecast on the screen as glamour girls and dizzy blondes.
Her notable film roles include Mimi in A Kid for Two Farthings, Marilyn's colleague Betty in The Prince and the Showgirl, Sheila, a local barmaid, in Quatermass 2, a hooker in The Flesh Is Weak, and a singer who falls victim to Boris Karloff in The Haunted Strangler. She also appeared in the low-budget horror film The Woman Eater, a rather ludicrous offering about a carnivorous tree and a mad scientist.
For television, Vera first appeared in an episode of Britain's first soap opera, The Grove Family, in 1954. Her later guest spots included Dixon of Dock Green, No Hiding Place, The Saint, and The Bill. After a 34-year hiatus, Vera came out of retirement to play the role of Tanya in Guy Ritchie's gangster epic Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels in 1998.
Vera married fashion photographer Terry O'Neill in 1963, but they divorced in 1976. O'Neill went on to marry American star actress Faye Dunaway.
