Phyllis Brooks

Known for ActingBorn 1915-07-18Died 1995-08-01Boise, Idaho, USA

Phyllis Brooks was an American actress and model. Brooks was born Phyllis Seiler in Boise, Idaho on July 18, 1915. She began her career in films at age 20, and had been known as the "Ipana Toothpaste Girl" due to her work as a model. Brooks, who had about 30 performances in films, was a B-movie leading lady during the 1930s and 1940s, with roles in such films as In Old Chicago (1937), Little Miss Broadway (1938), and the Shanghai Gesture (1941). In the late 1930s, she dated Cary Grant, who called her Brooksie, and rumors that the two would be married were circulated. Brooks, something of a socialite, also dated Howard Hughes. Along with fellow actress Una Merkel, and accompanied by noted actor Gary Cooper, Phyllis was the first civilian woman to travel to the Pacific Theater of War during World War II, on a USO tour. She was married to Torbert Macdonald, an 11-term Massachusetts Congressman who was John F. Kennedy's roommate at Harvard, and who remained a close friend and confidante throughout his life. She moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts with her new husband in 1945 so he could complete his Harvard Law degree. Congressman Macdonald had been a Harvard football captain and a decorated PT boat captain in World War II. He died in office in 1976. Phyllis continued performing in summer stock theater after her marriage, and hosted the first television interview program in Boston in the early 1950s (on WBZ-TV). She retired from public performances after that, concentrating on raising her family. The couple had four children, the eldest of whom was President Kennedy's godson. She died on August 1, 1995 in Cape Neddick, Maine at the age of 80.Read more

Movies & web series

Up the River

To Beat the Band

McFadden´s Flats

Lucky to Me

Straight, Place and Show

Strange Wives

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm

Walking Down Broadway

In Old Chicago

Hi'ya, Sailor

Charlie Chan in Honolulu

Little Miss Broadway

City Girl

You Can't Have Everything

Charlie Chan in Reno

The Flying Squad

The Shanghai Gesture

No Place for a Lady

Ali Baba Goes to Town

Dangerously Yours

High Powered

Slightly Honorable

Dangerous Passage

Silver Spurs

The Unseen

Another Face

Lady in the Dark

Sunday Night at the Trocadero

I've Been Around

Foolish Hearts