Katherine Justice
- Actress
Red-haired former farm girl Katherine Justice came to prominence as a prolific TV guest star of the 1960s, 70s and 80s. She first attracted attention as beauty contest winner 'Miss Ohio' in 1960. Being underage (17), she was disqualified from competing for the 'Miss Universe' title in Miami Beach. At 22, Katherine graduated from Carnegie Tech Drama School and then progressed to further acting studies at the Hubbard Playhouse. She took her first steps on the stage in 1964 at the Front Street Theater in Memphis, on the Arena Stage in Washington (including as Lola in Damn Yankees) and in summer stock the following year.
In early 1966, Katherine was noticed by the film producer and talent agent Harold Hecht during her maiden TV performance in an episode of La grande vallée (1965) and cast as one of a group of migrating settlers on the Oregon Trail in the feature film La route de l'Ouest (1967). A year later, she won another pivotal role on the big screen in the western-murder mystery 5 cartes à abattre (1968), starring Dean Martin and with Robert Mitchum as a homicidal Baptist preacher.
Signed to a 5-year contract by Paramount, Katherine decided to focus her career on television. She appeared twice on Les envahisseurs (1967): the first time, as one of the alien invaders posing as David Vincent's former lover, in the first season episode The Innocents, and the second time as the fiancée of a close friend in second season's The Possessed. In Columbo: Inculpé de meurtre (1968), first in the Columbo series of 'Mystery Movies', she guest-starred as an actress who impersonates the dead wife of her lover (Gene Barry) in order to provide him with an alibi for her murder. She was an outlaw's moll, kidnapped by a bounty hunter, in an episode of Le Virginien (1962) and featured multiple times as different characters in Gunsmoke (1955), Sur la piste du crime (1965), Mannix (1967), Cannon (1971) and Barnaby Jones (1973). Add to this a recurring role in the melodrama Falcon Crest (1981) (which reunited her with 'Invaders' co-star Roy Thinnes in the role of his on-screen wife) and a starring turn in the syndicated nightly soap Dangerous Women (1991), modelled on the Australian TV series Prisoner (1979), with Katherine cast as former 'top dog' inmate Rita Jones (the U.S. equivalent of Australia's 'Bea' Smith, as played by Val Lehman).
Married and divorced from one James Clarence Brown Jr., Katherine resides in Van Nuys, California, under the name Katherine Justice Brown. She retired from acting in 2015.
In early 1966, Katherine was noticed by the film producer and talent agent Harold Hecht during her maiden TV performance in an episode of La grande vallée (1965) and cast as one of a group of migrating settlers on the Oregon Trail in the feature film La route de l'Ouest (1967). A year later, she won another pivotal role on the big screen in the western-murder mystery 5 cartes à abattre (1968), starring Dean Martin and with Robert Mitchum as a homicidal Baptist preacher.
Signed to a 5-year contract by Paramount, Katherine decided to focus her career on television. She appeared twice on Les envahisseurs (1967): the first time, as one of the alien invaders posing as David Vincent's former lover, in the first season episode The Innocents, and the second time as the fiancée of a close friend in second season's The Possessed. In Columbo: Inculpé de meurtre (1968), first in the Columbo series of 'Mystery Movies', she guest-starred as an actress who impersonates the dead wife of her lover (Gene Barry) in order to provide him with an alibi for her murder. She was an outlaw's moll, kidnapped by a bounty hunter, in an episode of Le Virginien (1962) and featured multiple times as different characters in Gunsmoke (1955), Sur la piste du crime (1965), Mannix (1967), Cannon (1971) and Barnaby Jones (1973). Add to this a recurring role in the melodrama Falcon Crest (1981) (which reunited her with 'Invaders' co-star Roy Thinnes in the role of his on-screen wife) and a starring turn in the syndicated nightly soap Dangerous Women (1991), modelled on the Australian TV series Prisoner (1979), with Katherine cast as former 'top dog' inmate Rita Jones (the U.S. equivalent of Australia's 'Bea' Smith, as played by Val Lehman).
Married and divorced from one James Clarence Brown Jr., Katherine resides in Van Nuys, California, under the name Katherine Justice Brown. She retired from acting in 2015.
