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- Actress
- Soundtrack
Minor league singer/actress Gale Robbins was a knockout-looking hazel-eyed redhead who made a modest dent in post-war Hollywood films. Born Betty Gale Robbins in Chicago, Illinois (some say Mitchell, Indiana) on May 7, 1921, she was the eldest of five daughters of Arthur E., a doctor, and Blanche Robbins, and educated at Chicago's Jennings Seminary at Aurora, Illinois and Flower Tech. Gale had a natural flair for music and appeared in glee clubs and church choirs in the early days. She graduated from her Chicago high school in 1939.
She started out in entertainment as a model for the Vera Jones Modeling School in Chicago, but her singing talents soon took over. Signed by a talent agency, she sang with Phil Levant's outfit in 1940 and later teamed with some male singers for a swing band that called themselves "The Duchess and Her Dukes." She went on to work with some of the top radio and live 'big bands' of that era including the Jan Garber and Hal Kemp orchestras, her best showcase was working for Art Jarrett in 1941 when he took over Kemp's band.
20th Century-Fox caught sight of this slim looker while she was singing for 'Ben Bernie (I)'s outfit and was quickly signed her up, her first film being the pleasant time-filler In the Meantime, Darling (1944). A semi-popular cheesecake pin-up, Gale appeared on the cover of "Yank, The Army Weekly" in 1944, was heard on radio, and toured with Bob Hope in Europe the next year. Her post-war parts, mostly sultry second leads, were typically lightweight in nature. She was often lent out to other studios and not always in a singing mode. Gale's better known film work includes Race Street (1948), The Barkleys of Broadway (1949), Three Little Words (1950), The Fuller Brush Girl (1950) and Calamity Jane (1953).
Gale went on to host the Hollywood House (1949) and also appeared on The Colgate Comedy Hour (1950) in 1951. In the late 50s the gal with the smooth and sexy vocal style released an easy-listening album ("I'm a Dreamer") for the Vik Label backed by Eddie Cano & His Orchestra. She covered such standards as "Them There Eyes" and "What Is This Thing Called Love." After her final film appearance in Quantrill's Raiders (1958) and a few additional TV parts on such programs as "Bourbon Street Beat," "77 Sunset Strip," "The Untouchables," "Perry Mason" and "Mister Ed," Gale phased out her career to focus full-time on raising her family.
Married to her high school sweetheart Robert Olson in November of 1943 while he was serving in the Air Force, her husband turned to construction engineering as a career and they had two children. After her 47-year-old husband was tragically killed on February 4, 1967, in a building accident, a distraught Gale, left the States for a time with her two daughters, and decided to make a transatlantic comeback of sorts appearing in nightclubs in Japan and the Orient. She later was glimpsed in the film Stand Up and Be Counted (1972) and appeared on stage in Stephen Sondheim's musical "Company" in 1975. She also made ends meet as an interior decorator. Gale died of lung cancer in February of 1980, and interred at Forest Lawn Cemetery.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Vasiliadou was born in 1897, in Athens, Greece. Her real name was Georgia Athanasiou. She was obliged to leave school early and work as a shop girl, in order to help her family. She made her stage debut in 1918, but began her studies at the Gennadeios Phonetic School in 1923 and appeared in some operas. She then worked with the major theater companies of the period (Kyveli , Marika Kotopouli, Dimitris Myrat), playing a wide range of parts. In the mid-1930s she decided to retire, but Alekos Sakellarios offered her a small part in the 1939 musical comedy "Koritsia tis pantreias"; that was the genesis of a second career for the middle-aged actress, who went on to star in many comedies and revues and created personal stage groups until the late 1960s. She also made a tentative movie debut in 1930, but became one of the all-time greats of the Greek cinema during the 1950s, when she starred in extremely popular comedies like I oraia ton Athinon (1954), in which Nikos Tsiforos played with her unconventional external appearance, and The Auntie from Chicago (1957), in which director-writer Alekos Sakellarios cast her as a wealthy Greek-American who returns to Greece after thirty years and brings a fresh lifestyle to the family of her conservative brother. She died in 1980, but is always fondly remembered by Greek audiences.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Moultrie Kelsall was born on 24 October 1901 in Bearsden, Scotland, UK. He was an actor and producer, known for Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951), The Franchise Affair (1951) and Smith (1970). He was married to Ruby Dun. He died on 12 February 1980 in Blair Logie, Scotland, UK.- American poet Muriel Rukeyser was born in New York City in 1915. She attended Vassar College, but returned to New York after two years to write poetry.
In 1931 she traveled to Alabama to attend the infamous "Scottsboro Boys" trial (nine young black teenage boys were accused of raping two white women on a train, convicted and sentenced to death by an all-white jury; a lynch mob attempted to hang them before the trial, they were denied adequate counsel and exculpatory evidence was not presented. It also turned out that the two "victims" admitted they had fabricated the rape stories, but the boys were convicted anyway). She said that the event opened her eyes to the deep-seated existence of racism in American society, not only to the extent that innocent men were sentenced to death solely because they were black, but that she and other "Yankees" were chased out of town by locals angry at what they saw as outside "interference" in local matters).
She returned to New York City and attended Roosevelt Aviation School (where she wrote her first book, "The Theory of Flight"). She later traveled to Europe, and in 1937 was aboard a train in Spain when the Spanish Civil War broke out; she and other passengers were trapped on the train in a town in the Pyrenees while gun battles raged outside between rebels and government troops. She returned to the U.S. and traveled between New York and California, writing the book "U.S.1". She has also written several volumes of poetry, a biography of Willard Gibbs and a book about the fall of Wake Island during World War II.
She died of cancer in New York City in 1965. - Aubrey H. Bowser, a teacher and freelance writer in the New York City metropolitan area, was the son-in-law of famed African-American newspaperman T. Thomas Fortune, the leading Black journalist of the nineteenth century. A 1908 graduate of Harvard University, upon graduation, Bowser went to work on the staff of his father-in-law's newspaper, the New York "Age"; he would subsequently become a English teacher in the New York City Public School system. Bowser adapted the screenplay for this movie from his short story "The Man Who Would Be White."
- Vlasta Petrovicová was born on 25 September 1903 in Dluhonice u Prerova, Austria-Hungary [now Czech Republic]. She was an actress, known for Vyznavaci slunce (1926), Láska a lidé (1937) and Enchanted (1942). She died on 12 February 1980 in Prague, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic].
- Vittorio Bachelet was born on 20 February 1926 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. He died on 12 February 1980 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.
- Director
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Vladimir Kochetov was born on 11 June 1906 in Troparyovo, Moscow Governorate, Russian Empire [now Moscow Oblast, Russia]. He was a director and actor, known for Svet v okne (1960), Im bylo devyatnadtsat (1960) and Chudak-chelovek (1962). He died on 12 February 1980.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Jack Roth was born on 24 June 1898. He was an actor, known for Music for Millions (1944), Jimmy Durante: The Great Schnozzola (2001) and The Colgate Comedy Hour (1950). He died on 12 February 1980 in Yonkers, New York, USA.- Actor
Göran Öhrström was born on 18 May 1915 in Vänersborg, Västra Götalands län, Sweden. He was an actor. He died on 12 February 1980 in Stockholm, Stockholms län, Sweden.