Abbott and Costello's Leading Ladies

Sherry Alberoni was born on 4 December 1946 in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. She is an actress, known for Sisters of Death (1977), Cyborg 2087 (1966) and The 3 Worlds of Gulliver (1960). She has been married to Dr. Richard Van Meter since 4 December 1971. They have two children.

An alumnus of the Pasadena Playhouse, Louise Allbritton's beauty and talent quickly got her jobs in the film industry, and she spent several years at Universal, where she played leads in mainly second features. She married CBS news reporter Charles Collingwood in 1946, and retired from the screen a few years later.

The preeminent singing sister act of all time with well over 75 million records sold by which the swinging big-band era could not be better represented were the fabulous Andrews Sisters: the blonde melodic mezzo Patty Andrews, the brunette soprano Maxene Andrews and the red-headed contralto Laverne Andrews.

With their precise harmonies and perfectly syncopated dance moves, the girls reached heights of worldwide fame still unattained by any group which followed. They delivered an optimistic, upbeat war campaign that instilled hope, joy and allegiance through song, comedy, and lively movement. Providing a musical security blanket to a war-torn country via records, films, radio, clubs, stages, canteens, they bravely traveled overseas war zones emphasizing through song the motto that America was strong and proud ... and to keep on singing and swinging! Unfortunately, while the adhesive harmonies of The Andrews Sisters were intricately close, their personal harmonies were more discordant.

Second only to perhaps Bob Hope in commitment and extensive USO touring, the girls' profound influence extends even today with such current pop idols as Bette Midler, The Pointer Sisters, Barry Manilow, The Manhattan Transfer and Christina Aguilera. All have reinvented themselves in Andrews Sisters' style at one time or another. .

Hailing from Minnesota, eldest sister LaVerne Sophie was born on July 6, 1911, followed by Maxene Angelyn on January 3, 1916, and finally Patricia Marie on February 16, 1918. Greek father Peter was a restaurateur in the Minneapolis area; their mother Ollie was a Norwegian homemaker. Childhood was, for the most part, lost to them. The girls' musical talents were quickly identified and they started performing on the road as youngsters, entering assorted kiddie contests and often winning for their efforts. They practically grew up on the vaudeville circuit, roughing it and toughing it with various bands and orchestras.

Signed by orchestra leader Leon Belasco in 1937, the girls made their very first recordings with "There's a Lull in My Life" (an early solo by Patty), "Jammin'" and "Wake Up and Live." Subsequent radio work eventually led to the Decca Records label. Although LaVerne read music and was, in fact, an accomplished pianist, the trio learned by sense memory, pure instinct and a strong ear. Patty, the youngest, became the lively melodic leader, engulfed by the warm harmonies of LaVerne and Maxene.

The old Yiddish song "Bei Mir Bist Du Schon" was translated into English for them by Sammy Cahn and the girls walked off with their first huge hit in late 1937 (and paid a flat fifty dollars and no royalties!). An overnight sensation upon release wherein it sold more than a million copies, their contract was immediately revised by Decca and throughout the rest of the decade, they recorded smash after smash -- "The Beer Barrel Polka (Roll Out the Barrel!)," "Well, All Right," "Hold Tight, Hold Tight" (with Jimmy Dorsey ), "Oh, Johnny! Oh, Johnny! Oh!," and their first two duets with Bing Crosby in 1939: "Ciribiribin" and "Yodelin' Jive" (both featuring jazz violinist Joe Venuti and his orchestra).

The country was absolutely enthralled and captivated. Universal responded in like by signing them to some of their nonsensical "B" musicals derived purely for escapism as the U.S. prepared itself and became embroiled in WW2. Their first appearance co-starred the zany and sometimes corny antics of The Ritz Brothers in an unflattering ditty called Argentine Nights (1940). The frizzy-bobbed trio were introduced as a sort of specialty act with the songs "Hit the Road," "Oh, He Loves Me" and "Rhumboogie." This was followed by a 1-2-3 punch back at the recording studio with their renditions of the rollicking "Beat Me, Daddy, Eight to the Bar," a reinvention of the WW1 waltz "I'll Be with You in Apple Blossom Time" and the soft, sentimental ballad "Mean to Me."

Their second film was the above-average Bud Abbott - Lou Costello vehicle Buck Privates (1941), which solidly showcased the tunes "You're a Lucky Fellow, Mr. Smith," "Bounce Me Brother with a Solid Four," "I'll Be with You in Apple Blossom Time," and their infectious signature jump hit "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy." The girls vocalized perfectly and stepped in swinging time for two other Bud Abbott - Lou Costello comedies, In the Navy (1941) and Hold That Ghost (1941).

Box-office sellouts on stage and in personal appearances across the nation, they were given their own radio show in late 1944, which continued through 1946, featuring such weekly guest stars as Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, Eddie Cantor, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, Carmen Miranda, Judy Garland, Ethel Merman, Rudy Vallee, and many other prominent celebrities. In late1947, CBS Radio signed the sisters as regulars on "Club Fifteen" (they appeared three times a week for five years with alternating hosts Bob Crosby and crooner Dick Haymes.

In 1942, Universal decided it was the right time to spruce them up and give them a bit more on-screen persona by featuring them front-and-center in what turned out to be an unfortunate string of poorly-produced "quickies." In Give Out, Sisters (1942), they posed as rich society matron types out to better their careers while featuring their big hit "Pennsylvania Polka." In Private Buckaroo (1942), they put on a show for servicemen singing, among others, the huge hit "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree with Anyone Else But Me". The plots may have been pancake-thin but they were sure-fire morale boosters and needed war-time tension relievers. No trained actresses by any margin, the girls emanated a down-home naturalness and appeal with a comedic flair that attracted audiences coast-to-coast.

In later films, the girls played everything from "lonely hearts" club managers in Always a Bridesmaid (1943), to elevator operators in How's About It? (1943), to war-time factory workers in Swingtime Johnny (1943). The girls were also featured in Universal's Follow the Boys (1944) and Paramount's Hollywood Canteen (1944), popular all-star productions designed to promote the war effort. With a never-say-die flair, they finished up their Universal contract rather inauspiciously with Her Lucky Night (1945), just as WW2 had come to an end.

Still highly in demand in the recording studio, on radio, on stage and in clubs, they had no trouble moving on. In the post-war years, they appeared in Paramount's Die Welt dreht sich verkehrt (1947) and teamed with Bing Crosby on "You Don't Have to Know the Language." The picture was the highest-grossing film of that year. The Disney company also utilized the girls' voices in their cartoon features Make Mine Music (1946) and Melody Time (1948).

All three girls experienced down times in their personal lives as well during the late-1940s. There were rumblings amid the group. Maxene and Patty went through painful divorces (Maxene split with the group's manager Lou Levy; Patty lost agent and husband, Martin Melcher to singer Doris Day), and lost their parents within a year of each other, as did their mentor Jack Kapp of Decca Records. Moreover, the girls squabbled over their parents' estate shares and individual career desires.

In 1953, Patty, the group's lead, declared she was going solo. LaVerne and Maxene attempted to duo for a time until Maxene attempted suicide, of a drug overdose in 1954, heartbroken over the brittle breakup of the group. LaVerne denied the suicide attempt to reporters. The girls reunited in 1956 and worked constantly for the next decade in recording studios (Capitol and Dot), on stages throughout the world (frequently in England), and in countless guest-star television spots.

LaVerne's serious illness in 1966, however, promptly ended the trio permanently. She died of liver cancer in May of the next year. Maxene retired shortly after and became Dean of Women at a Tahoe, Nevada college. Patty, ever the trouper, continued on television, in clubs and in film cameos...wherever there was an audience.

In 1973, Patty and Maxene reunited for their first Broadway musical, the nostalgic "Over Here" (Tony-winning Janie Sell played the LaVerne counterpart) in which they performed their old standards following the show's second act; but it did little to repair the strained Patty/Maxene off-stage relationship, especially since LaVerne wasn't around to foster peace-making tactics. As Maxene blamed Patty's husband, Walter Weschler, as an instigator in separating her from Patty, the estrangement remained permanent until Maxene's death in 1995.

The two sisters did reunite briefly when they earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1987. The group was also inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1998. Patty sang in shows and on cruise ships while Maxene continued soloing and did quite well for a time in such musical shows as "Pippin" and "Swing Time Canteen" (the latter as late as 1995).

Plagued by heart problems (she suffered a massive heart attack in 1982), Maxene died of a second coronary on October 21, 1995. Patty remained in seclusion in her Northridge home near Los Angeles with husband Wally for years. After his death in 2010, Patty began a slow and steady decline and died on January 30, 2013, just two weeks before her 95th birthday.

Fortunately, The Andrews Sisters' legendary feuding can never overshadow their exhaustive musical contributions and unparalleled success during 36 years of performing together. In 1987, the group was honored with a Hollywood Walk of Fame star for their recording work. The following year, they were among the inaugural inductees to the Vocal Group Hall of Fame.

Evelyn Ankers, a beautiful movie actress who was a staple of Universal's horror films in the 1940s, was born in Chile to English parents in 1918. Her parents repatriated the family back to England in the 1920s, and it was in Old Blighty that Ankers developed a desire to become an actress.

She began appearing in small roles in English movies in the mid 1930s while she was still in school. She appeared in Fire Over England (1937) with Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh and in Bells of St. Mary's (1937). A beauty with talent, she soon won starring roles in the low-budget The Villiers Diamond (1938) and The Claydon Treasure Mystery (1938).

With war clouds darkening the skies over Europe, Ankers emigrated to the United States and was signed to a contract by Universal in 1940. She made her Universal debut in the Abbott and Costello comedy-horror picture Hold That Ghost (1941) before appearing in the horror film classic The Wolf Man (1941) opposite Lon Chaney Jr.. Ankers found herself cast into the horror picture ghetto, appearing in three more Chaney fright films, The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), Son of Dracula (1943) and The Frozen Ghost (1945), during a period in which she was cast ashore with a sarong-less Jon Hall in The Invisible Man's Revenge (1944). She also appeared in support of Basil Rathbone's Sherlock Holmes in Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942) and The Pearl of Death (1944).

Ankers married B-movie hunk Richard Denning in 1942 and made a go articulating the anxieties of the home front while her husband was off to war. Horror flicks were popular during World War II, but after the cessation of hostilities in 1945, they went out of favor with audiences. Ankers' career, mated to the genre at Universal, suffered.

She quit Universal in 1945 and freelanced at Columbia and Poverty Row's Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC) and Republic Pictures in dramas and mysteries. Evelyn co-starred with her returned husband, Richard, in the major release Black Beauty (1946) for 20th Century Fox. For PRC, she headlined Queen of Burlesque (1946) and later co-starred with Lex Barker in Tarzan's Magic Fountain (1949).

As the 1950s dawned, a decade of conformity and family values, Ankers quit the movies for married life and motherhood after making The Texan Meets Calamity Jane (1950), in which she was first-billed. She was 32 years old. A decade later, Ankers came out of retirement to make one final screen appearance, in her hubby's No Greater Love (1960).

Evelyn Ankers died of ovarian cancer on August 29, 1985, twelve days after her 67th birthday.

Lenore Aubert was born in present-day Slovenia, at the time still connected to the Austro-Hungarian Empire (her French name was pure Hollywood hokum, designed to make her background more exotic - though she did live for some time in Paris). Eleanore Maria Leisner was the daughter of an Austrian general and spent her formative years in Vienna where she studied acting and appeared in a few movies as an extra. Her marriage to a Jewish boy obliged her to leave Austria after the 'Anschluss' and the couple emigrated to the United States via France. In New York, Lenore found work as a model and was eventually offered a lucrative stage role as Lorraine Sheldon in "The Man Who Came to Dinner" at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego. Determined to get the part, Lenore crossed the U.S. by bus.

Once settled in California, Lenore was 'discovered' twice. The first time, she was spotted by an agent for Samuel Goldwyn and signed to appear as the alluring Nazi spy trying to tempt Bob Hope in They Got Me Covered (1943). Though Dorothy Lamour wryly commented on Lenore's sexy walk, there was not enough screen time for the newcomer to seriously challenge the established star in the popularity stakes. After that, Lenore went into Action in Arabia (1944) opposite George Sanders. This picture did not make much of a splash either, but attracted the attention of Republic studio boss Herbert J. Yates, who was still desperately searching to find a replacement for his failed star Vera Ralston. Lenore was consequently cast in the period thriller The Catman of Paris (1946) which was launched with a (for Republic) bigger-then-average publicity campaign and went on to be exhibited at the better cinemas. Unfortunately, in the course of the 65 minutes, sets and cinematography were the real stars. Though the cast tried hard, they failed to overcome the deficiencies of lacklustre direction,a silly script and the even sillier makeup for the not very scary top- hatted 'werecat' monster. Needless to say, that 'Catman' did nothing for the careers of any involved.

During the next few years, Lenore appeared in a number of B-movies, such as The Return of the Whistler (1948) and Barbary Pirate (1949). Her own favourite among her screen roles was that of Viennese singer/actress Fritzi Scheff (1879-1954) in I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now (1947). Several times she had screen-tested, unsuccessfully, for A-grade productions. These included Saratoga Trunk (1945) and For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), but on both occasions she lost out to Ingrid Bergman. Lenore's greatest success in film was probably retrospectively, due to the popularity and later cult status enjoyed by two films starring her with Abbott and Costello, made back-to-back: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) (generally regarded as the duo's best) and Bud Abbott Lou Costello Meet the Killer Boris Karloff (1949). A story goes, that, during production of the former, Lenore (attired all in mink) walked actor Glenn Strange -- in full make-up as the Frankenstein monster -- on a leash up and down the studio lot in full view of visiting tourists arriving on the tour tram (nothing beats good publicity !).

In the 1950's, Lenore joined her husband who was in the garment business in New York. The business succeeded, the marriage did not. With the exception of a couple of minor European films, Lenore's acting career was effectively over. She devoted much of her remaining life to charitable causes, doing work for the United Nations and the Museum of Natural History in New York.

Tall, regal, sultry, flame-haired (later blonde) Lynn Baggett is better remembered for her turbulent, unhappy private life than for her "B" level acting roles. Born Ruth Baggett in Wichita Falls, Texas, on May 10, 1923, her father, David L., was in the oil business and her mother, the former Ruth Simmons, was a stenographer. While in Dallas following her high school graduation, the pretty teenager was discovered by a Warner Bros. agent and signed. As a girl with no experience, Lynn (sometimes billed as Lynne) was promoted by the studio as a beauty queen and titleholder ("The Cobra Girl," "The Triple A Girl," etc.) while paying her dues in a slew of unbilled sexy starlet bits as chorines, nurses, waitresses, singers and party-girl types. For five long years she toiled obscurely in such WWII-era films as Manpower (1941), Air Force (1943), The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944), Roughly Speaking (1945), Mildred Pierce (1945) and Night and Day (1946).

The studio did little to increase her stature in Hollywood, and she eventually was released from her contract in 1946. After signing with Universal, she finally received her first role of substance in The Time of Their Lives (1946), an above-average Abbott and Costello haunted-house comedy. Following her marriage to the Austro-Hungarian producer Sam Spiegel ("On the Waterfront") in 1948, she acted less frequently, showing up in a few secondary roles, that of a shady lady of mystery in the classic film noir D.O.A. (1949)) probably being her best-remembered one and those in The Flame and the Arrow (1950) and The Mob (1951) being her most prominent.

The Spiegel-Baggett marriage was quite stormy, marred by adultery and nasty fighting, and they separated in 1952. Three years later, she finally received a divorce. With her career now in shambles, Lynn found work as an Arthur Murray dance teacher. In 1954, she was the direct cause of a fatal two-car accident in which a 9-year-old boy, on his way home from a summer camping excursion, was killed. Another young boy in the same car was seriously injured. Overcome by fear and acute anguish, she "blacked out" and was later charged with leaving the scene of an accident and was convicted of felony hit-and-run.

A failed comeback attempt at acting led to severe depression, mental problems and acute substance abuse. She attempted suicide by pills in 1959 before succeeding a year later on March 22, 1960, dying of acute barbiturate intoxication. She had been released from a private sanitarium several weeks earlier. She was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park. Never close to showing her true potential, Lynn(e) Baggett became one of Hollywood's sadder statistics.

A curvaceous, dark-haired WWII pin-up beauty (aka "The Woo Woo Girl" and "The Girl with the Million Dollar Figure"), "B" film star Lynn Bari had the requisite looks and talent but few of the lucky breaks needed to penetrate the "A" rankings during her extensive Hollywood career. Nevertheless, some worthy performances of hers stand out in late-night viewings.

She was born with the elite-sounding name of Marjorie Schuyler Fisher on December 18, 1919 (various sources also list 1913, 1915 and 1917), in Roanoke, Virginia. She and her elder brother, John, moved with their mother to Boston following the death of their father in 1927. Her mother remarried, this time to a minister, and the family relocated once again when her stepfather was assigned a ministry in California (the Institute of Religious Science in Los Angeles).

Paying her dues for years as a snappy bit-part chorine, secretary, party girl and/or glorified extra while being groomed as a starlet under contract to MGM and Fox, her first released film was the MGM comedy Meet the Baron (1933), in which she provided typical window dressing as a collegian. For the next few years there was little growth at either studio, as she was usually standing amidst others in crowd scenes and looking excited. Finally in Lancer Spy (1937), she received her first billing on screen for a minor part as "Miss Fenwick". Though more bit parts were to dribble in, the year 1938 proved to be her breakthrough year. She finally gained some ground playing the "other woman" role in glossy soaps and musicals, first giving Barbara Stanwyck some trouble in Always Goodbye (1938).

Fox Studios finally handed her some smart co-leads and top supports in such second-tier films as The Return of the Cisco Kid (1939), Pack Up Your Troubles (1939), Hotel for Women (1939), and Hollywood Cavalcade (1939). Anxiously waiting for "the big one", she made do with her strong looks, tending toward unsympathetic parts. She enjoyed the attention she received playing disparaging society ladies, divas, villainesses, and even a strong-willed prairie flower in such films as Pier 13 (1940), Earthbound (1940), Kit Carson (1940), and Sun Valley Serenade (1941), but they did little to advance her in the ranks.

The very best role of her frisky career came with the grade "A" comedy The Magnificent Dope (1942), in which she shared top billing with Henry Fonda and Don Ameche. But good roles were hard to find in Lynn's case, and she good-naturedly took whatever was given her. Other above-average movies (she appeared in well over 150) of this period came with China Girl (1942), Hello Frisco, Hello (1943), The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1944), and Nocturne (1946).

With diminishing offers for film parts by the 1950s, she started leaning heavily towards stage and TV work. She continued her career until the late '60s and then retired. Her last work included the film The Young Runaways (1968) and TV episodes of "The Girl from U.N.C.L.E." and "The F.B.I." Divorced three times in all, husband #2 was volatile manager/producer Sidney Luft, better known as Judy Garland's hubby years later, who was the father of her only child. Her third husband was a doctor/psychiatrist, and she worked as his nurse for quite some time. They divorced in 1972. Plagued by arthritis in later years, Bari passed away from heart problems on November 20, 1989. Although she may have been labeled a "B" leading lady, she definitely was in the "A" ranks when it came to class and beauty.

British-born actress who appeared in both British and American films, but who found her greatest success in Hollywood second leads. After a variety of jobs, including nurse, chorus girl and milkmaid, Barnes entered vaudeville. She appeared in more than a score of short comedies with comedian Stanley Lupino before making her feature bow in 1931. Two years later she achieved prominence as one of the half-dozen wives of the King in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933). The following year she moved to Hollywood and began a career as the smart-aleck pal of the lead or as the angry "other woman." Barnes also played numerous leading roles, but spent most of the 1930s and 40s in strong supporting parts. In 1940 she married football star (and later producer) M.J. Frankovich and after the war, they moved to Italy and appeared in several films there and elsewhere in Europe. She retired from films in 1954, but returned for a few roles in the late 60s and early 70s. She worked busily with numerous charities until her death in 1998.

Petite, attractive Mari Blanchard rarely managed to get the lucky breaks. The daughter of an oil tycoon and a psychotherapist, she suffered from severe poliomyelitis from the age of nine, which denied her a hoped-for dancing career. For several years, she worked hard to rehabilitate her limbs from paralysis, swimming and later even performing on the trapeze at Cole Brothers Circus. At the urging of her parents, she then attended the University of Southern California, where she studied international law before dropping out nine units short of a degree. Her university studies did not lead to a career either. Sometime in the late 1940s, she joined the Conover Agency as an advertising model and, at the same time, was promoted by famed cartoonist and writer Al Capp, becoming the inspiration for one of his Li'l Abner characters.

As the result of an advertisement on the back page of the Hollywood Reporter, Mari was signed to a contract with Paramount. However, her early experience in the movie business proved an unhappy one, most of her roles being walk-ons and bit parts. Ten Tall Men (1951), for example, limited her to a token stroll down a street, twirling a parasol and smiling seductively at members of the Foreign Legion. It wasn't until Mari joined Universal that her fortunes improved somewhat, with a co-starring role (opposite Victor Mature) in The Veils of Bagdad (1953). After that, it was all downhill again. Burt Lancaster, co-producer and star (with Gary Cooper of the excellent A-grade western Vera Cruz (1954), had requested Mari as his leading lady, but Universal refused her release to United Artists and forbade her to accept the lucrative role (Denise Darcel ended up getting the part). Mari then lost the lead in a much lesser picture,Saskatchewan (1954), to Shelley Winters. Instead, she was cast as Venusian Queen Allura in one of the least exciting outings by Universal's leading comic duo, Abbott and Costello Go to Mars (1953).

Mari did end up with a respectable starring role in the western Destry (1954) opposite Audie Murphy. A remake of the classic Destry Rides Again (1939), she was cast in the Marlene Dietrich part and took great pains to affect a totally different look, darkening her hair so as not to be compared to the great star. Even the name of her character was changed from 'Frenchy' to 'Brandy'. "Destry" was not all smooth sailing. There was tension between her and director George Marshall (who had also directed the original version) and Mari suffered a facial injury as the result of a fight scene. The film was critically well received, but unfortunately Universal failed to renew its contract with Miss Blanchard, and her career then went into free fall.

Freelancing for lesser studios, she played a TB victim injected with a serum turning her into a Mr. Hyde-like killer in the lurid She Devil (1957) (during filming she nearly died of acute appendicitis). Mari then appeared for Republic in the eminently forgettable No Place to Land (1958) before briefly starring in her own short-lived adventure series Klondike (1960). Her last role of note was as the cheerful and likeable town madam in the rollicking John Wayne western comedy [error]. Sometime that year, Mari Blanchard developed the cancer which was to claim her life in 1970 at the age of just 47.

Hillary Brooke's image as the epitome of glacial, regal, upper-class British gentility is muted somewhat by the fact that she was born Beatrice Sofia Mathilda Peterson to a middle-class American family in Long Island, New York. She was the sister of actor Arthur Peterson, best-known as the demented "Major" on the soap-opera satire Soap (1977). Always a beauty, she had a successful career as a photographer's model before breaking into show business. Her "British" accent came about when she realized that she was just one of innumerable tall, good-looking blondes vying for roles, and needed something to make her stand out among them. She came up with affecting a British accent and it worked; she began to get more and more roles that called for a "British" blonde, so she kept the accent.

Her film debut was in New Faces of 1937 (1937), in which -- billed as "Beatrice Schute" -- she played a showgirl. She began working steadily in films in the early 1940s, and appeared in such major productions as The Woman in Green (1945), The Fuller Brush Man (1948), The Philadelphia Story (1940), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941), Wake Island (1942), Jane Eyre (1943) and The Enchanted Cottage (1945), in addition to the usual run of "B" westerns and thrillers in which many up-and-coming young actresses had to put in time. In the early 1950s she began appearing on television including 23 appearances on The Abbott and Costello Show (1952) as "Hillary Brooke", the object of Lou Costello's affections. She had worked previously with the duo in their second color film, Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd (1952), in which she played a pirate chief.

She had no compunctions about taking a pie in the face, a vase on the head, a pratfall, or tussling with Bingo the chimp, and more than held her own. She also had a similar role as the girlfriend of Vern Albright (Charles Farrell) in My Little Margie (1952) and alternated between television and film roles in the 1950s. One of her better-known roles was as little David MacLean (Jimmy Hunt)'s mother, Mary, who is taken over by the Martians in the sci-fi classic Invaders from Mars (1953). She also played Doris Day's character's best friend in The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), and, the next year, had her final film role in Spoilers of the Forest (1957), after which she turned exclusively to television.

She retired from the film industry in 1960, after marrying film executive Raymond A. Klune, and died in Bonsall, California, aged 84, in 1999.

Barbara Brown was born on 18 October 1901 in Los Angeles, California, USA. She was an actress, known for Ma and Pa Kettle Back on the Farm (1951), You Were Never Lovelier (1942) and Janie Gets Married (1946). She was married to William Hinshaw. She died on 7 July 1975 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Carol Bruce was born on 15 November 1919 in Great Neck, Long Island, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987), American Gigolo (1980) and Behind the Eight Ball (1942). She was married to Milton Nathonson. She died on 9 October 2007 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.

American leading lady of the 1930s and 1940s, Virginia Bruce was born in Minnesota but grew up in Fargo, North Dakota, and came to California to attend college. Her blond good looks got her an entry into films, and after a few extra roles and bit parts she began to make serious inroads as a leading woman in secondary films and as the "other" woman in more prestigious productions. She married screen legend John Gilbert, then in his decline. Subsequently she was married to director J. Walter Ruben and to Turkish producer/director Ali Ipar, for whom she appeared in some Turkish films all but unseen in America. She died in 1982.

Shaye Cogan was born on 20 September 1923 in Hudson, Massachusetts, USA. She was an actress, known for Jack and the Beanstalk (1952), Comin' Round the Mountain (1951) and Mister Rock and Roll (1957). She died on 12 June 2009 in Modesto, California, USA.

Born Madelyn Earle Jones in South Carolina in 1919, this future actress' childhood dream was to be a missionary in China, but a taste of acting in school plays soon changed her mind and she decided on a career on stage. Her mother was supportive of her decision and, while Madelyn was attending college in South Carolina, entered her picture in a contest sponsored by CBS Radio for a part in a radio play in Hollywood. Madelyn won the part and took the name of the character she played, Lois Collier, as her professional name.

Collier landed more radio work, and soon began playing small parts in local stage productions and getting some work in a few films for Republic Pictures. It was on stage, however, where she was spotted by a scout for Universal Pictures and given a seven-year contract. Although Lois possessed a beautiful singing voice, Universal seldom gave her a chance to show it off, and she was stuck in a succession of B pictures and serials. When her contract expired, she freelanced and did a few comedies and westerns for Monogram and some serials for Republic. In 1951 she got a role on the Boston Blackie (1951) TV series, and stayed on the show until it was canceled in 1954, after which she retired from the business.

Resembling Hedy Lamarr with her brunet sultry looks, beautiful second-string actress Patricia Dane possessed a rough and rowdy exterior, which worked much better for her in front of the camera than off of it. Born Thelma Patricia Ann Pippen in Jacksonville, Florida, her father died shortly after her birth and the infant was placed in the care, for a time, of her grandparents. When her mother remarried a man named Byrnes, young Thelma went back to live with her and was raised with the new name of Thelma Byrnes.

Following graduation from Andrew Jackson High School in Jacksonville, Patricia entered the University of Alabama. She moved to New York in 1938 with the intentions of being a fashion designer, but her dark-eyed beauty instead led her to instant money with modeling jobs. This opened a few doors and she quickly got caught up in the New York whirlwind "high life," becoming known around town as a feisty party girl.

Cast in her first role as a well-endowed Ziegfeld Girl in MGM's splashy, musical aptly named Ziegfeld Girl (1941), the studio immediately signed her up. She made minor impressions in Life Begins for Andy Hardy (1941) and as gangster Robert Taylor's girl in Johnny Eager (1941), which led to co-star billing in the "B" films Grand Central Murder (1942), as a volatile, cold-hearted actress who meets a nasty end, _Northwest Rangers (1942) and _Manhattan Melodrama (1942)_.

Patricia was squired about town with a number of eligible bachelors but on April 8, 1943 she became Mrs. Tommy Dorsey. Following a role in the Red Skelton vehicle I Dood It (1943), she left films per the renowned bandleader's insistence. The marriage was stormy to say the least, with some grand knockout fights that made headlines as both were pretty wild tipplers (she would often refer themselves as "The New Battling Bogarts"). This marriage had little chance for survival and on August 26, 1947 it was finished. She never remarried.

Patricia could now return to films and did so with the minor entries Joe Palooka in Fighting Mad (1948) and Are You with It? (1948). Nothing came of it. She made more unattractive news in 1949 when she and MGM actor Robert Walker were arrested for driving erratically, public drunkenness and resisting arrest. After this, all she could find were unbilled parts in Road to Bali (1952) and A Life of Her Own (1950).

Moving to Blountsown, Florida, Patricia's life quieted down considerably becoming, of all things, a librarian in town. She died completely out of the limelight of lung cancer on June 5, 1995.

Widely popular comedienne appeared in some movies and on radio in the 40s and on early television. She starred in the popular television series, I Married Joan (1952), with Jim Backus as her husband and her real-life daughter, Beverly Wills as her sister.

Joan died of a sudden heart attack in 1961. Two years later, a fire tragically claimed the lives of her mother, daughter and two grandsons.

Jacqueline deWit was born on 26 September 1912 in Los Angeles, California, USA. She was an actress, known for Little Giant (1946), The Damned Don't Cry (1950) and All That Heaven Allows (1955). She died on 7 January 1998 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

She was born Dorothy Arlene Dodd on December 29, 1911 in Baxter, Iowa when her Little Rock, Arkansas parents were on a trip to Des Moines. Her father was a doctor who abandoned her and her mother before she was ten years old. Her mother suffered from tuberculosis and Dorothy was forced to support her. She went to New York at the age of fifteen, lied about her age, and joined the Ziegfeld Follies where she was eventually discovered by Darryl F. Zanuck, the head of Fox.

Zanuck brought her to Hollywood and shepherded her throughout most of her career. She worked for Warner Brothers, Paramount, and Universal. She typically played the conniving "other" woman and could not be cast as a "dumb blonde" because of her cerebral nature and demeanor. Good friends with Bette Davis, with whom she worked in Ex-Lady (1933), she worked with everyone from Humphrey Bogart and Errol Flynn to Barbara Stanwyck, and James Cagney.

She played famed Girl Friday Della Street in a couple of 1930s Perry Mason mystery film thrillers, starring Warren William and in one (The Case of the Velvet Claws (1936)), she married Mason, the only Della Street to do so. She played the female lead in In the Navy (1941) opposite Dick Powell but received lesser billing, which she claimed was a standard procedure practiced on her in recompense for her aloofness and refusal to go along with the Hollywood system. In fact, one reporter whom she rebuffed nicknamed her "Ice Bucket" and the reputation stuck.

She worked in almost sixty films between 1930 and 1942. She quit films and married second husband H. Brand Cooper, with whom she raised four children. She undertook and completed this phase of her life after age forty, giving birth to her last child at the age of forty-seven. She was, to say the least, a remarkable woman. She died in the family home from cancer on November 23, 1973, aged 61.

A pleasant, attractive leading lady, Cathy Downs was an "outdoors type" who worked as a model before she became a Fox contract player in 1944. In the late 1940s she was being groomed for major success -- e.g., she played the title role in John Ford's My Darling Clementine (1946) -- but most of her subsequent movie roles were in low-budget westerns, action and horror pictures. She was married to Joe Kirkwood Jr., an actor and producer who played Joe Palooka in a series of low-budget 1940-'50s films. They acted together in a short-lived TV series The Joe Palooka Story (1954). She is well-regarded in science-fiction fan circles as a memorable heroine of 1950s sci-fi flicks.

Lovely brown-eyed, brunette Claire Du Brey enjoyed a rich, four-decade film career in all. Born Clara Violet Dubrey on August 31, 1892, in Bonner's Ferry Idaho, her family traveled the rugged Sierra Madre terrain by covered wagon in their move to California when she was 13.

Educated in a convent setting and once trained to be a nurse, Claire responded to an newspaper ad and found employment working part time in motion pictures. From there, she found herself in front of the camera, making her movie debut as star Billie Burke's friend in the Triangle release Peggy (1916). Universal saw a leading lady vamp in her, however, and from 1917 she enjoyed star billing in such silent short and feature-length vehicles as Princess Dione in the Rex Ingram-directed The Reward of the Faithless (1917); The Fighting Gringo (1917), opposite Harry Carey; Anything Once (1917) and The Winged Mystery (1917) both co-starring Franklyn Farnum; Brace Up (1918) with Herbert Rawlinson; the family drama The Magic Eye (1918); and A Man in the Open (1919) with Dustin Farnum. She also appeared in a number of Lon Chaney's early Universal vehicles such as The Rescue (1917) Pay Me! (1917) and Triumph (1917).

A versatile player whether asked to portray royalty, servants, temptresses or prairie flowers, Claire turned to Los Angeles stage plays during an early 1920s lull in film offers and graced such vehicles as "Madame X," "Spring Cleaning" and "The Youngest". Later "jazz age" film roles included The Sea Hawk (1924), Drusilla with a Million (1925) Exquisite Sinner (1926), and The Devil Dancer (1927).

During the declining period of her career (1928), Claire met actress Marie Dressler and they became close friends. Claire wound up serving as Dressler's secretary, fan mail handler and travel companion. In reward, Dressler arranged for Claire to get small roles a few of her talking films Politics (1931) and Prosperity (1932). She also served as Dressler's nurse in 1933 when the elder woman was dying of cancer.

As a character actress, Claire became much in demand throughout the late 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, appearing in general purpose roles as secretaries, nurses, salesladies, housekeepers, matrons, spinsters, relatives, etc. On a rare occasion she managed to stand out, none more so than in her mad scene as Bertha Rochester in a "B"-level version of Jane Eyre (1934) starring Colin Clive and Virginia Bruce. Seen sporadically on TV into the 1950s, she retired by the end of the decade. Her last film roles were in Girls Town (1959) and The Miracle (1959), both unbilled.

An early marriage to a doctor, Mark Gorman, ended in divorce. She lived another four decades after leaving the limelight. In her final years she grew deaf and her health quite fragile, dying at the age of 100 on August 1, 1993.

Margaret Dumont would not consider it a tragedy that she is best-known for her performances as the ultimate straight woman in seven of the Marx Brothers' films (including most of their best). It is a popular myth that she never understood their jokes (offscreen and on); restored footage of Groucho's "Hooray for Captain Spaulding" shows her laughing at his ad libs. Apart from a small role in a 1917 Dickens adaptation, she spent her early career on the stage, ending up with the Marxes in the late 1920s in the stage versions of The Cocoanuts (1929) and Animal Crackers (1930), and was given a Paramount contract at the same time they were. She played similar roles alongside other great comedians, including W.C. Fields, Laurel & Hardy and Jack Benny and also played straight dramatic parts (her chief love), but few of them made much impact - it is as Groucho Marx's foil that she ranks among the immortals, and she died shortly after being reunited with him on The Hollywood Palace (1964).

Kerstin Anita Marianne Ekberg was born on September 29, 1931 in Malmo, Sweden. Growing up with seven brothers and sisters was not an adventure, but Anita's adventure began when she was elected Miss Sweden in 1950. She did not win the Miss Universe contest but she got a modeling contract in the United States. She quickly got a film contract with Howard Hughes's RKO that did not lead anywhere (but Anita herself has said that Hughes wanted to marry her). Instead, she started making movies with Universal, small roles that more often than not only required her to look beautiful. After five years in Hollywood, she found herself in Rome, where Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita (1960) meant her breakthrough. She stayed in Italy and made around 20 movies during the next ten years, some roles memorable, some to be forgotten. Her two marriages gave her a great deal of attention from the press. During the 1970s, the roles became less frequent, but she made a marvellous comeback with Fellini's Intervista (1987).

Anita Ekberg retired from acting in 2002 after 50 years in the motion picture industry. In December 2011, she was destitute following three months in a hospital with a broken thigh in Rimini, during which her home was robbed of jewelry and furniture, and her villa was badly damaged in a fire. Ekberg applied for help from the Fellini Foundation, which also found itself in difficult financial straits. She died at age 83 from complications of an enduring illness on January 11, 2015 at the clinic San Raffaele in Rocca di Papa, Italy. Ekberg had a new film project with exclusively female Italian producer "Le Bestevem", in which her character, as movie star, should have been recovered again as an icon of the silver screen, a project that was interrupted by her death.

Her funeral was held on January 14, 2015, at the Lutheran-Evangelical Christuskirche in Rome, after which her body was cremated and her remains were buried at the cemetery of Skanor Church in Sweden.

On Saturday, June 15th, 1996, an era in jazz singing came to an end, with the death of Ella Fitzgerald at her home in California. She was the last of four great female jazz singers (including Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, and Carmen McRae) who defined one of the most prolific eras in jazz vocal style. Ella had extraordinary vocal skills from the time she was a teenager, and joined the Chick Webb Orchestra in 1935 when she was 16 years old. With an output of more than 200 albums, she was at her sophisticated best with the songs of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, of George Gershwin, and of Cole Porter. Her 13 Grammy awards are more than any other jazz performer, and she won the Best Female Vocalist award three years in a row. Completely at home with up-tempo songs, her scat singing placed her jazz vocals with the finest jazz instrumentalists, and it was this magnificent voice that she brought to her film appearances. Her last few years, during which she had a bout with congestive heart failure and suffered bilateral amputation of her legs from complications of diabetes, were spent in seclusion.

Diane Florentine was born on 9 August 1935 in Los Angeles, California, USA. She is an actress, known for The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap (1947).