Elyse Knox

Biography

Elyse Knox, the actress best known for starring in The Mummy's Tomb (1942) and for being Heisman Award-winner Tom Harmon's wife and actor Mark Harmon's mother, was born Elsie Lillian Kornbrath on December 14, 1917 in Hartford, Connecticut, to Austrian parents Hermine Sophie (Muck) and Frederick Kornbrath, from Vienna. Knox's first love was not acting but art: she began painting in oils during high school, and painting remained a passion throughout her life. She had an exhibition of her work in 1981. After graduating from New York City's Traphagen School of Fashion, she got a job in a New York design studio as an artist's assistant intent on becoming a fashion designer. When a model did not arrive as scheduled, she filled in and soon became a top fashion model herself, appearing in all the major magazines. She modeled some of her own creations in "Vogue Magazine" in 1937. That and an appearance as a fashion model in a newsreel landed her a Hollywood contract from 20th Century-Fox. She made her debut in an uncredited bit part in Wake Up and Live (1937), starring gossip columnist Walter Winchell, in 1937. Knox would not appear again on-screen for another three years, until Free, Blonde and 21 (1940) in 1940. In all, she made 39 movies in the 1940s. Knox bounced around between studios, including Paramount and Universal. While at Paramount, she met Heisman Trophy winner Tom Harmon, to whom she became engaged. The engagement was broken off when he went off to WWII and she married another man, but that marriage proved short-lived. When Harmon returned from the war, she married him in 1944. She was a contract player at Universal in the 1940s, where she made the "Mummy" movie with Lon Chaney Jr. who - having had to carry her in a kidnapping scene - thanked her for being petite. The real-life love of a genuine sports hero, she also played Anne Howe, girl friend of fictional boxer "Joe Palooka," in a series of B-movies at Monogram. After having two children with Harmon, she retired in 1949. "I'm just a mother at heart," she said, "so I decided it was time to retire from the screen." Her son Mark, born in 1951, played for UCLA as a quarterback and became a top TV star. One of her daughters, Kristin Nelson (1945-2018), was an actress who married singer/actor Ricky Nelson (1940-1985). The twin singer-songwriters Gunnar Nelson and Matthew Nelson are her grandchildren. Elyse Knox died on February 16, 2012 in Los Angeles. She was 94 years old.