Maxine Cooper Gomberg (May 12, 1924 - April 4, 2009)

Sometimes one role is all it takes - if it's the right role.

Blacklisted Dorothy Comingore didn't have much of a film career, but she will always be remembered for having played Susan Alexander in Orson Welles' Citizen Kane - or if not always, for at least as long as film is revered as an artistic medium.

Similarly, Maxine Cooper (later Maxine Cooper Gomberg) appeared in only a few movies and a handful of television shows (Perry Mason, The Twilight Zone), but for as long as people remember and talk about film noir, Maxine Cooper will be remembered for having played "Velda," secretary and helpmate to conscience-less private eye Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) in "the Holy Grail of apocalyptic noirs," Robert Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly (1955, above).

The L.A. Times obituary is here.