Gloria Winters (November 28, 1931 – August 14, 2010) was an actress most remembered for having portrayed the well-mannered niece, Penny King, in the 1950s – 1960s American television series Sky King. Biography Early life and career Born Gloria Carolyn Hirst in Los Angeles on November 28, 1931, She grew up in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, and later moved to Hollywood with her family. A child actress, she made her debut, she said in a mid-2000s radio interview, "when I was about five," with a small role in a Shirley Temple movie. "I came running out to Shirley Temple, and she was supposed to help me, like I had just gone to the little girls' room." Winters went on to a Pete Smith movie short, in a scene of her coming down a slide to the grass, where a black Scottie dog licked her face. She also appeared in an Our Gang feature. She performed onstage, and took tap dance classes, and in the late 1940s and early 1950s was first cast in Western films such as Driftwood (1947) and El Paso (1949), and in such television series as The Lone Ranger and The Range Rider. Her roughly twenty films, mostly Westerns, include The Lawless (1950) and Gambling House (1951). She portrayed daughter Babs Riley in the first season of the NBC sitcom The Life of Riley (1949 to 1950), starring Jackie Gleason and Rosemary DeCamp. Winters appeared, too, in a recurring role as Ruth Farley in the 1953–1955 ABC sitcom with a variety show theme, Where's Raymond?, renamed The Ray Bolger Show. Sky King Winters' signature role was in the television drama Sky King, starring Kirby Grant as rancher and pilot Schuyler "Sky" King in Arizona of the 1950s. Winters played the blonde, baby-faced, perky but earnest and helpful teen-aged niece, Penny King, who lived with her uncle at the Flying Crown Ranch and often became involved in his varied adventures. She played the role in seventy-two episodes from 1952 to 1959. Ron Hagerthy appeared in nineteen episodes during 1952 as Sky King's nephew and Penny's brother, Clipper. Sky King ran on NBC and ABC, and was filmed in 1951 to 1952 and from 1955 through at least 1959, as sponsors changed. It ran thereafter in syndication, but the actors received no residuals. During the run of Sky King, Winters and Kirby Grant performed as a