Elena Verdugo, born April 25, 1925, in Paso Robles, California of Spanish parentage, is an actress who began in films at the age of six in Cavalier of the West (1931). Her career in radio, television and movies spanned six decades.

She made numerous film appearances through the 1940s, including several Universal horror films. While filming the Abbott and Costello comedy Little Giant (1946), she met and married screenwriter Charles R. Marion, who also wrote for the comedy team's radio show. The couple had one son, Richard Marion, who later became an actor/director.

Verdugo had a flair for comedy, and she garnered much laughter and applause in the title role of the hit situation comedy Meet Millie on both radio and live television of the early 1950s. She was twice nominated for an Emmy for her performances as Consuelo Lopez in Marcus Welby, M.D..

She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Most baby-boomers remember actress Elena Verdugo from her pleasant, plain but rather dowdy Emmy-nominated role as Consuelo Lopez, the altruistic assistant and sometime aide-de-camp to Robert Young (I)'s general practitioner for several seasons on the popular "Marcus Welby, M.D." (1969) dramatic series. However, decades before donning her drab white nurse's hat, she was an alluring 40s Universal player who displayed her best assets in their "B" adventure yarns and horror opuses. One who was probably wise to keep a set of hoop earrings nearby at all times, Elena reliably hauled out a reliable number of gypsies, harem dancers, peasant girls, Indian maidens and senoritas over the years before TV instigated the second stretch of her career. Elena was born April 20, 1925, in Paso Robles, California of Spanish parentage, and began putting on dance shoes as a kindergartener. At age 6, she made her movie debut in the western Cavalier of the West (1931) starring Harry Carey, but didn't come back to films until her teen years. She nominally provided exotic footwork for such movies as Down Argentine Way (1940) with Betty Grable and Carmen Miranda, the Tyrone Power (I) starrer Blood and Sand (1941), and the war picture To the Shores of Tripoli (1942), among others. She received her first big break featured as the object of desire of George Sanders (I)'s impressionist painter Paul Gauguin in Moon and Sixpence, The (1942). Universal used her consistently in the mid to late 40s, starting her off as the touching and vulnerable gypsy girl Ilonka in the multiple monster bash House of Frankenstein (1944) which featured the holy horror trinity of Dracula, the Werewolf and Frankenstein's Monster. A natural blonde who got plenty of wear out of the dark wigs handed to her for these kinds of roles, her best scenes in the movie were with the doomed lycanthropic Larry Talbot played by Lon Chaney Jr.. She went on to appear with Chaney again in Frozen Ghost, The (1945). While filming the Abbott and Costello comedy Little Giant (1946), she met and married movie writer Charles R. Marion, who also wrote for the comedy duo's radio show. The couple had one son, Richard Marion, who later became an actor/director in his own right. A real trooper despite her stereotype, Elena forged on in nothing-special "easterns" (i.e., Song of Scheherazade (1947); Thief of Damascus (1952)) and westerns (i.e., El Dorado Pass (1948); Big Sombrero, The (1949)) playing whatever ethnic the script called for. Television became a reality in the early 1950s. She found herself in a major sitcom hit playing a Brooklyn-born secretary for four seasons on "Meet Millie" (1952), initially replacing Audrey Totter in the lead role on radio. Elena retired for a time after this but eventually returned to perform on the occasional musical stage and on the small screen. After her big success as the nurse/receptionist on the "Welby" series, she slowed down considerably, but she and Young did reunite on Return of Marcus Welby, M.D., The (1984) (TV), sans the other series' star, James Brolin, a decade later. Verdugo, who later married Charles Rockwell after her divorce from writer Marion, has since appeared occasionally at nostalgia-based film/TV conventions. In 1999 she suffered the loss of her only child to a heart attack. He was only 50.