The scene just wasn't working.  The director wanted a close-up of the action with Rhonda Fleming in all her stunning beauty riding furiously uphill and raising her horse skyward, with the rugged Glenn Ford following in hot pursuit.  "Rhonda, it would look more convincing if you did this stunt yourself," Ford suggested to his leading lady.  So on the rocky terrain of Sedona, Arizona -- the locale for The Redhead and the Cowboy -- the dedicated Fleming heeded the advice, mounted up, and bolted up the hill.  With horses' hooves pounding and dust and dirt flying, Fleming and Ford reached the summit.  Fleming pulled back on the reigns, raising her horse's head and front legs majestically.  But then, disaster struck.  To the horror of both cast and crew, the horse reeled backward, causing the star to hit the ground like a rag doll with the 900-pound beast crashing down of top of her, knocking her unconscious.  "That horse crushed me, " Rhonda reflects painfully.  "When I came to, I got back on my feet.  I don't know how I did it, but I just kept going.  I don't know how I survived that, or didn't end up in a wheelchair."

  This incident, oddly enough, is only one in a series of life-or-death situations Fleming has experienced throughout her lifetime.  In each case, the actress has miraculously escaped serious harm and attributes such moments of survival to divine intervention.  "I have often found myself saying, 'Lord, you really must have a purpose for me,'" Rhonda states.  "I've been a Christian since I was 18, and He has always had his hand on me."

  Born Marilyn Louis on August 10, 1923 in Hollywood, California to show business parents, the future international film star grew up with aspirations of becoming a singer.  It was during her adolescent years while attending Beverly Hills High School that Fleming's day of discovery would arrive.  One day, while running late to school, a seemingly suspicious car circled around the block, its driver observing the teenager walking briskly with her long, auburn hair flowing in the wind.  "Finally, he stopped me," Rhonda recalls, "and got out of the car and said, 'Young lady, have you ever thought of being in motion pictures?'"  Well, he turned out to be Henry Wilson, an agent who later became David O. Selznick's right arm.  He told me I looked like a little Deanna Durbin, and she was my idol.  I wanted to look like her and sing like her."  Fleming counts herself fortunate for being a part of the old................................................