Ellanora Needles

Short Biography

American actress, primarily on the stage, who played a few small roles in films. Born Ellanora Needles into a renowned circus family, she attended the Pasadena Community Playhouse as an acting student. While there, she married actor George Reeves in 1940. One of her classmates, Teddi Sherman, was the daughter of producer Harry Sherman, and like many Playhouse students she was given a small role, under the name Shelley Spencer, in one of Sherman's films, Leather Burners (1943), in which her husband also appeared. Like many of the wives of stars in the Army Air Force's Broadway play "Winged Victory, " she was given a bit role. She acted in many other plays, primarily in California, usually as Ellanora Needles or occasionally as Ellanora Reeves or simply Ella-Nora. She did not make another film until 1950, by which time she had been divorced by Reeves and had married Beverly Hills attorney Edward M. Rose. She made a few, mostly uncredited, bit part appearances using the name Sarah Spencer and then retired from acting. In her later years, she served as a religious minister. Widowed, she died at 83, survived by two daughters from her marriage to Rose.