Film and TV actress Carla Balenda (also billed as Sally Bliss), 98, died on April 9 at the at the Motion Picture & Television Country House, her family has just announced. She was signed by Columbia in 1944, and over the next ten years appeared in mostly B-films and westerns: Swing in the Saddle, Eadie Was a Lady, The Pace That Thrills, Sealed Cargo, Outlaw Women, Prince of Pirates, Phantom Stallion. She shifted to TV in the 1950s, and had recurring roles in The Mickey Rooney Show, The Adventures of Dr. Fu Manchu and Lassie (as Miss Hazlit, Timmy’s schoolteacher). Balenda spoke to Raff Ellis of The Carthage Tribune (her home town) in 2013, saying that Howard Hughes chose her alternate name, Sally Bliss: “He had a long list of exotic names that he chose from for his actresses.” She and Hughes “dated a few times. Howard was always surrounded by beautiful women.” Balenda left acting in the 1960s after marrying her second husband, to raise her family.
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