Rhonda Fleming, the legendary movie star of several decades whose career peaked in the 1950s, was among my favorite interviews when I was editor of the entertainment magazine On The Arizona Set.

I first became aware of Ms. Fleming when a high school coach spoke about going to the movies as a boy and falling in love with a blonde and a redhead: Marilyn Monroe and Rhonda Fleming.

While Marilyn died tragically in the early sixties, Rhonda may have been less famous but has led a fully productive and philanthropic life and resides in Century City, California at the age of 92. A graduate of Beverly Hills High School, she got discovered by an agent. Her name was changed by David O. Selznick and she became dubbed the Queen of Technicolor. There were over forty films after her debut in a Hitchcock thriller as a mental patient, including four with Ronald Reagan; countless television shows; and six husbands and a son, but later in life she retired from films to focus on charity. She has received a vast amount of recognition from various organizations.

During our interview, she had discussed the Rhonda Fleming Mann Clinic for Women’s Comprehensive Care and the Rhonda Fleming Mann Resource Center for Women with Cancer, both at UCLA. As a result, I sent her a copy of my mother Patsy Paxton’s book about breast cancer, C Notes: My Journey Through Breast Cancer. Ms. Fleming included it in the center library and invited us to visit. I received two letters from her, one thanking me for the article I wrote about her and one thanking me for sending Mom’s book.

Just the other night I watched a Rhonda Fleming movie on Turner Classic Movies. It was The Crowded Sky (1960), an early version of the glossy airport disaster films. In this one she played a villainess. That took some acting.

On her IMDB page, she is quoted as saying, “Mine was a very rare and wonderful Cinderella story that could only have happened during the studio system era of Hollywood.”

As a movie star, Rhonda Fleming was the perfect woman in the looks department. When I met her in the mid-1990s, she was still a gorgeous vision at 72. Twenty years ago. Hard to imagine.

The article is posted below from On The Arizona Set, March 1997 issue.

Sitting in the chapel with … Rhonda Fleming!

When Rhonda Fleming comes into your field of vision, it nearly takes your breath away. While she was celebrated as a great beauty during the middle part of this century when she made nearly 40 films and was ravishingly photographed by movie cameras, she remains a presence, a head turner, even a stunner. Her statuesque figure was in tact with the movie star features of her lovely face, her coppery red hair, and amazingly flawless skin.

Her sleight of hand has been to transcend time, and by doing so, she somehow surpasses all the special effects that Hollywood can muster. Hers is that rare combination of inner and outer beauty, of whimsy and intelligence, of privilege and compassion. She commands with gentle sincerity.

She started out in Spellbound, the Alfred Hitchcock classic with Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman. She went on to star opposite Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Bing Crosby, Glenn Ford, Bob Hope, and even Ronald Reagan in such films as The Great Lover, Little Egypt, Those Redheads From Seattle (in 3-D), Pony Express, and A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court.

The remarkable star was on hand recently to launch the national headquarters of Childhelp, USA in Scottsdale when I spotted her at a pre-event gathering with several other people who qualify as household names. We stepped inside a chapel that she had donated to the facility. It was a beautiful place for meditation and prayer with stained glass and a mural of angels. Miss Fleming (aka Mrs. Rhonda Fleming Mann) expressed her religious nature in hoping that abused or abandoned children could come to this place and realize that they are never alone, that God is there for them.

Was this the actress that the coaches at my high school were always fantasizing about alternately with Marilyn Monroe?

As we sat in the solitude, I asked Rhonda Fleming if she had made any films in Arizona.

She smiled. “Many. Gosh. So many westerns. There was The Redhead and the Cowboy and Gunfight At the O.K. Corral. Let’s see, I did several with Ronnie Reagan. Tennessee’s Partner.”

“I remember the one where you were the southern spy.”

“That was The Redhead and the Cowboy with Glenn Ford,” she said with a sparkle in her eye. “Oh, I love Arizona. I love Arizona. If I hadn’t just built a beautiful home in L.A. in Century City, it would be my favorite place. My son moved here. He loves it here. The people and everything about it are so special.”

I asked her the question that had been foremost in my mind. “Are there any plans for your return to acting in the movies?”

Without hesitation, she responded.

“No, I have no desire to go back to the movies. I have been asked and there have been some scripts sent, but I couldn’t quite see myself playing the roles.”

Rhonda Fleming’s life has taken a different turn instead.

“I’m really enjoying what I’m doing with my life today,” she says with a contagious enthusiasm. “I have a wonderful center at UCLA for women with cancer. It’s the Rhonda Fleming Mann Resource Center for Women with Cancer in memory of my sister Beverly, who passed away about six years ago from cancer.

“We saw a terribly big need for psychosocial care to treat the whole person as well as the disease. We didn’t used to have the help that we’re giving women now. We have every resource there that you can think of at the 200 Medical Plaza Building at UCLA. We’re going to open a store on the first floor of the building this coming year that will house everything that a patient won’t have to shop around for – wigs, scarves, turbans, prostheses, or whatever. We have insights into cancer with the top speakers and top doctors every month in the auditorium. There are support groups and no one is ever abandoned. We give all the tender loving care we can.”

This was a Rhonda Fleming speaking that I couldn’t help but admire.

“So that’s my life today. It’s really rewarding for me because we’re touching so many lives. When you’re in the picture business all those years, you are pretty much your own commodity in that you’re having to sell yourself. But when you reach out and touch other people, you can enjoy that process. When they say “can you help?”; you can say “yes.” We always give them help. And always give ‘em hope because that’s what keeps them alive.”

A note of optimism resonates in her wonderfully cultivated voice.

“There are so many people surviving. Certainly they are living longer with all the support and all the care. Many people don’t get it from their family because the family may not know how. They’re scared themselves. You have to dispel that fear.”

Later, when Rhonda Fleming took her place in line with other celebrities to speak on behalf of Childhelp, I shot her a smile and a thumb’s up. She returned the gesture. In spades.