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Many of us of a certain age can fondly remember sprawling in front of big black-and-white TV consoles in our PJs on many a Saturday morning to thrill to the airborne adventures of the Songbird. Among some of my personal favorites, Sky King was a popular American childrens TV series (adapted from a radio show that began in 1946) combining Western elements with aviation and crime-fighting for 72 30-minute episodes produced between 1952 and 1959 by Jack Chertok for the NBC and ABC television networks.

Beloved U.S. TV actress Gloria Winters-Vernon has died at the age of 78. Winters-Vernon passed away at her home in Vista, California on August 14 after a battle with pneumonia, her family tells The Los Angeles Times.

As Gloria Winters she enjoyed guest acting roles in numerous 1950s series, including "Richard Diamond", "Private Detective", "Racket Squad" and "Death Valley Days" - but she was perhaps best-known for her role as Penny in TV western "Sky King". She retired shortly after the series went off the air in 1959 but found love on the hit show before she quit acting, marrying Dean Vernon, a sound engineer on "Sky King" who died in 2001.

The "Sky King" role also inspired her to write an etiquette book for young girls, entitled "Penny's Guide to Teenage Charm and Personality" - which inspired alternative band Nada Surf's 1996 song and video "Popular"

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Winters-Vernon is survived by her sister-in-law,...

Beloved U.S. TV actress Gloria Winters-vernon has died at the age of 78.

Winters-Vernon passed away at her home in Vista, California on 14 August after a battle with pneumonia, her family tells The Los Angeles Times.

As Gloria Winters she enjoyed guest acting roles in numerous 1950s series, including Richard Diamond, Private Detective, Racket Squad and Death Valley Days - but she was perhaps best-known for her role as Penny in TV western Sky King.

She retired shortly after the series went off the air in 1959 but found love on the hit show before she quit acting, marrying Dean Vernon, a sound engineer on Sky King who died in 2001.

The Sky King role also inspired her to write an etiquette book for young girls, entitled Penny's Guide to Teenage Charm and Personality - which inspired alternative band Nada Surf's 1996 song and video Popular.

Winters-Vernon is survived by her sister-in-law, Phyllis DeCinces.

Actress Eugenia Paul was featured in a handful of films and television productions in the 1950s. She co-starred with scream queen Allison Hayes in the 1957 voodoo horror film The Disembodied as native girl Mara.

She was born Eugenia Popoff in Dearborn, Michigan in 1935. She trained as a dancer before settling in Hollywood in the early 1950s. Paul appeared in small roles in a handful of films in the 1950s, including Lost in Alaska (1952) with Abbott and Costello, The Adventures of Hajji Baba (1954), The Ten Commandments (1956), and Gunfighters of Abilene (1960). Paul was better known for her work in television, starring as Senorita Elena Torres opposite Guy Williams in early episodes of Disney’s Zorro in 1957. Her other television credits include episodes of Sky King, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Lone Ranger, and The Thin Man. She retired from the screen in the late 1950s after her marriage to Robert Strauss, the heir...