Audrey Totter (born December 20, 1918 in Joliet, Illinois) is an American actress.

Totter began her acting career in radio in the late 1930s and after success in Chicago and New York, was signed to a seven-year film contract with MGM Studios.

She made her film debut in Main Street After Dark (1945) and during the 1940s established herself as a popular female lead. Although she appeared in various film genres, she became most widely known to movie audiences in film noir productions. Initially MGM groomed her to become an important player, and she was paired opposite some of their biggest stars. Among her successes were The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) with John Garfield and Lana Turner, Lady in the Lake (1947) with Robert Montgomery and Jayne Meadows, The Unsuspected (1947 for Warner Brothers Studios) with Claude Rains, High Wall (1947) with Robert Taylor, The Saxon Charm (1948) with Montgomery and Susan Hayward, Alias Nick Beal (1949) with Ray Milland, The Set-Up (1949) with Robert Ryan, Any Number Can Play (1949) with Clark Gable and Alexis Smith, and Tension (1950) with Richard Basehart.

By the early 1950s the tough talking "dames" she was best known for portraying were no longer fashionable, and as MGM began to work towards creating more family themed films, Totter was released from her contract. Totter, for her part, was reported to have grown dissatisfied with MGM's handling of her career, only agreeing to appear in Any Number Can Play after Gable intervened.

She worked for Columbia Pictures and 20th Century Fox but the quality of her films dropped sharply, and by the end of the decade her career was in decline. A continuing role in the television series Medical Center, that of highly efficient Nurse Wilcox, from 1972 until 1976 was the biggest success of her later years. She was married to Leo Fred, assistant dean of the UCLA School of Medicine from 1953 to his death in 1995.

Totter's most recent TV appearance was in a 1987 episode of Murder, She Wrote.

One is certainly hard-pressed to think of another true "bad girl" representative so closely identifiable with film noir than hard-looking blonde actress Audrey Totter. Born to an Austrian father and Swedish mother on December 20, 1918, in Joliet, Illinois, she treaded lightly on stage ("The Copperhead," "My Sister Eileen") and initially earned notice on the Chicago and New York radio airwaves in the late 1930s before "going Hollywood." MGM developed an interest in her and put her on its payroll in 1944. Still appearing on radio (including the sitcom "Meet Millie"), she made her film bow as, of course, a "bad girl" in Main Street After Dark (1945). That same year the studio usurped her vocal talents to torment poor Phyllis Thaxter in Bewitched (1945). Her voice was prominent again as an unseen phone operator in Ziegfeld Follies (1946). Audrey played one of her rare pure heart roles in Cockeyed Miracle, The (1946). At this point she began to establish herself in the exciting "film noir" market. Among the certified classics she participated in were Postman Always Rings Twice, The (1946) in which she had a small role as John Garfield (I) blonde floozie pick-up. Things brightened considerably with Lady in the Lake (1947) with Robert Montgomery (I) playing detective Philip Marlowe but the film was not well received--now better remembered for its interesting subjective camera technique. Her first hit as a femme fatale co-star came on loanout to Warner Bros. In Unsuspected, The (1947), Audrey cemented her dubious reputation in "B" noir as a trampy, gold-digging niece married to alcoholic Hurd Hatfield. From here Audrey was on a roll. High Wall (1947) as a psychiatrist to patient Robert Taylor (I), Saxon Charm, The (1948) with Montgomery (again) and Susan Hayward (I), Alias Nick Beal (1949) as a loosely-moraled "Girl Friday" to Ray Milland, the boxing film Set-Up, The (1949) as the beleaguered wife of washed-up boxer Robert Ryan (I), Any Number Can Play (1949) with Clark Gable and a two-timing spouse in Tension (1949) with Richard Basehart. Although the studio groomed Audrey to become a top star, it was not to be--perhaps because she was so good at being bad. The 1950s softened considerably and MGM began focusing on family-styled comedy and drama. Audrey's tough-talking dames were no longer a commodity and MGM soon dropped her in 1951. She signed for a time with Columbia Pictures and 20th Century Fox for a time but her era had come and come and film offers evaporated. At around this time she also married Leo Fred, a doctor, and instead focused on marriage and family. TV gave her career a slight boost in the 1960s and 1970s, including regular roles in "Cimarron City" (1958) and "Our Man Higgins" (1962) as a suburban mom opposite Stanley Holloway British butler, but nothing propelled her to TV stardom. After a period of semi-retirement, she came back to TV to replace Jayne Meadows in the popular television series "Medical Center" (1969) starring Chad Everett and James Daly (I). She played Nurse Wilcox, a recurring role, for four seasons (1972-1976). By age 70, Totter retired after a 1987 guest role on "Murder, She Wrote." Her husband died in 1996.