Ella Raines’ legacy thriving in the Valley
Published 12:56 pm Thursday, October 2, 2008
SNOQUALMIE – Growing up in Snoqualmie Falls Cleo Soister was the neighbor of a girl named Ella Raines, who she remembers as being “kind of a pain – she sometimes liked to tie tin cans to the cow’s tails.”
Decades later Soister wryly admits, “The years go by so fast and nothing’s as good as it used to be, including my memory.”
When Raines and Soister were neighbors, Snoqualmie Falls was the logging mill town of the Snoqualmie Falls Lumber Company. Raines’ father was employed by Weyerhaueser Co., as a dynamite engineer.
According to a “Whatever Happened To …” column written by Don Tewkesbury for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Raines was discovered “by actor Charles Boyer while she was job-hunting in New York” a year after leaving the University of Washington where she had performed in college dramatics.
In 1943 she was cast as the female role in “Corvette K-225,” co-starring Randolph Scott.
In 1944 LIFE magazine highlighted Raines and her starring role in “Phantom Lady.” Raines appeared on the cover. “Phantom Lady” was “her first real chance to display her dewy beauty and genuine acting talent.”
