Talent agent Eleanor Kilgallen, who helped launch or advance the careers of numerous celebrities, including Grace Kelly, Warren Beatty, Robert Redford and Kim Cattrall, has died. She was 95.
Kilgallen died Saturday at the Christian Health Care Center in Wyckoff, N.J., her family announced.
Kilgallen was born in Indianapolis and raised in Brooklyn. She attended the Juilliard School in Manhattan and launched her career as a casting director at NBC Radio in the 1940s.
At CBS Radio, Kilgallen became friends with her assistant, Monique James. The two women left the company to form their own agency, Casting Consultants, where their clients included Grace Kelly and Leslie Nielsen.
MCA bought Casting Consultants in 1952.
By 1962, Kilgallen and James were working for Universal, where they signed and fostered the careers of Jack Klugman, Robert Redford, Jamie Lee Curtis and Harrison Ford, among many other celebrities.
Kilgallen retired from the talent business in 1982.
She is survived by a daughter, Susan Snaper-Shousha, of Paramus, N.J., and two grandchildren.
