As much as I love starlets, I adore debs. Deb of the Year (1939 vintage) Cobina Wright, Jr., died on Sept. 1, I just found out. She was the daughter of a New York stockbroker and his socially ambitious wife, and she and Brenda Frazier became huge pre-War celebutantes (they were poked fun at by everyone from nightclub comics “Brenda and Cobina” to, decades later, Green Acres–remember when Alf and Ralph Monroe would call each other Brenda and Cobina?).
Cobina proved herself a charming starlet in a handful of 20th Century-Fox films in the 1940s: Moon Over Miami, Charlie Chan in Rio, Week-End in Havana, Footlight Serenade. And she nearly snagged Prince Phillip as a husband till that Elizabeth girl got him away.