A 5′6″ blonde from the Astoria neighborhood of New York City's borough of Queens, Brooke, who was of Swedish ancestry,[2] started work as a model while attending Columbia University.[2] She spent a year in the United Kingdom, mastering an RP accent that she used in several of her films.[2] She frequently played English women in Hollywood films, and also had such a role in her only British-made film, The House Across the Lake.
She was a regular on several television series of the early 1950s, playing Roberta Townsend, the glamorous love interest of Margie's father Vern Albright on the 1952–1955 TV series My Little Margie. On The Abbott and Costello Show, produced in the early 1950s and syndicated for many years afterward, Brooke played the role of a straitlaced, classy tenant of the rooming house where the two main characters lived. She was treated with reverence by the duo and was not a target of pranks and slapstick. The love interest of Lou Costello, she always addressed him as "Louis". As with the other main characters, her character's name was her real name. She also appeared in Africa Screams (1949) and Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd (1952) with the comedy team.
On September 28, 1957, she played Doris Cole in the second episode of Perry Mason, titled "The Case of the Sleepwalker's Niece". Brooke also played Angela Randall in I Love Lucy's "The Fox Hunt", which aired February 6, 1956. She retired from television in 1960 following guest appearances on Richard Diamond, Private Detective as Laura Renault and in Michael Shayne as Greta Morgan.
Brooke married Alan Shute in 1936, divorcing in 1940. Brooke then married assistant director Jack Voglin in 1941, and the couple had one child together, Donald, before divorcing in 1948.[4] Brooke was married to Raymond A. Klune, an executive at MGM, from 1960 until his death on September 24, 1988. Through Klune she had two stepchildren, Carol V. Klune and Donald C. Klune.[5][6]
On May 25, 1999, Brooke died from a blood clot in the lung at a hospital in Bonsall, California.[8] She was cremated with her ashes scattered in the Pacific Ocean.[9] Her brother, actor Arthur Peterson Jr., died in 1996. [8]
For her contribution to the television industry, Hillary Brooke has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6307 Hollywood Boulevard.
She refused to play dumb blondes.
"Vacuity will never substitute for a glint of intelligence," she remarked. "However, anyone, man or woman, who is ostentatiously erudite, is lacking in something else or else is just a crashing bore."
"I never thought I was a great actress. Maybe I would have been better if I'd worked harder at it. But I really enjoyed my career and the wonderful people I worked with."[10]
