Nellie Elizabeth "Irish" McCalla

(1928-2002) born at Pawnee City, lived there and at Omaha. Actress , model, and painter, after being a December girl for one of Arturo Vargas calendars and a superstar pinup girl in the late 1940s and early 1950s for various men’s magazines, she starred in the television series "Sheena, Queen of the Jungle" during the 1956-57 season as the long-legged, independent version of Tarzan, also had roles in five other television shows, and appeared in five B-movies, including the cult-classic "She Demons"; became known for completing more than 1,000 oil and water color paintings with Western and Indian themes, with originals valued from $500 to $5,000, a few displayed at President Nixon’s home in San Clemente, California, the Los Angeles Museum of Arts and Sciences, and the Cowgirl Hall of Fame at Ft. Worth, Texas; her star was placed on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960. Consult Omaha Sunday World Herald Magazine, December 22, 1957, p. G- 17 and January 30, 1985, pp. 4-5 and Los Angeles Times, Calendar, January 13, 1980, p. 103 and Bill Black and Bill Feret, TV’s Original Sheena: Irish McCalla (Paragon, 1992) and Studies in Popular Culture, Vol 19, Issue 3 (Fall 1997) 1-9 and obituaries in Sunday World Herald, February 10, 2002, p. A-21 and Los Angeles Times, February 11, 2002, p. B-9.

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