Janet Munro

Birthday

Sep 28, 1934

Birthplace

Blackpool, Lancashire, England, UK

Bio: Date of Death6 December 1972, London, England, UK. (acute myocarditis) Height5' 6" (1.68 m) Mini BiographyCute, spunky, almond-eyed British actress Janet Munro was deemed to be an actress from day one as the daughter of a stage comedian. She grew up on British TV and was dubbed "Miss Television of 1958" by her fans. She caught the eye of Walt Disney and signed with… More Bio: Date of Death6 December 1972, London, England, UK. (acute myocarditis) Height5' 6" (1.68 m) Mini BiographyCute, spunky, almond-eyed British actress Janet Munro was deemed to be an actress from day one as the daughter of a stage comedian. She grew up on British TV and was dubbed "Miss Television of 1958" by her fans. She caught the eye of Walt Disney and signed with him in 1959, charming a whole new generation of Britishers and Americans as the scrappy, spirited, brunette-banged ingénue of several box-office films, notably Darby O'Gill and the Little People (1959), Third Man on the Mountain (1959), and Swiss Family Robinson (1960). After this Golden Globe winner for "most promising newcomer" outgrew Disney, she moved ahead and tried to alter her wholesome image with mature, spicier roles as unhappy, downtrodden women. Audiences didn't respond to this suddenly very mature and adult Janet Munro. Despite a BAFTA nomination for her role in Life for Ruth (1962), she began to see her career unraveling before her very eyes. Worse yet, she developed an acute alcohol problem to combat her unhappiness. Her marriages to actors Tony Wright and Ian Hendry fell by the wasteside and two miscarriages only deepened the suffering. Ironically, one of Janet's last screen roles was as a boozing pop star in the British film Sebastian (1968). Four years later Janet died. The immediate cause of her death was acute myocarditis; the underlying cause was chronic ischemic heart disease. She was only 38.