By age 12 Alice Kelley was already being noted in magazine photos as a striking beauty. She was a titled beauty queen, being named "Miss Junior Miss 1948". As a model and actress she used the name "Alice Ann Kelley" and was featured on numerous magazine covers. At 21 she married Ken Norris, then a lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force Reserve. He later inherited Norris Industries from his father and became a leading philanthropist in the Los Angeles area. Altogether, his family trust has contributed more than $70 million to various causes. She and Norris had two sons together and were later divorced before he died in a boating accident.