Margaret Sheridan

Sheridan worked as a model before Howard Hawks personally signed her to a contract and cast her in her breakout film role, an unusually direct path into a major studio production for a relative newcomer.

She played Nikki Nicholson with a rapid-fire, overlapping delivery straight out of Howard Hawks's screwball-comedy playbook — banter first, monster second. A relatively little-known actress outside this role, she was cast in a part written with the same fast, overlapping dialogue style Hawks had used in his earlier comedies.

It remains by far her best-known screen performance, and her film career afterward remained comparatively modest.