Biography

Devera Burstein Kettner, a former actress and model who once managed the Curran Theatre in San Francisco. Born and raised in San Francisco, Mrs. Kettner was a famous beauty who graduated from Lowell High School and worked as a professional fashion model. She acted in local small theater productions and then moved to Southern California, where she studied theater at the Pasadena Playhouse. She soon got a number of bit parts in movies. Her big break came in 1949, when, under her screen name Devera Burton, she landed a starring role in the South Seas epic "Omoo-Omoo the Shark God," which was loosely based on a novel by Herman Melville. The movie remains a minor cult classic still available on videotape. After the film, she gave up her screen career to marry the late Max Kettner and move to New York.