Gale Storm (1922-2009)
I read that Gale Storm died on Saturday, just as the news about Michael Jackson was cresting like a wave. She might have earned a thumbnail photo on the front page of the Times had it not been for that particular news cycle: 
Her stage name may have made her sound vaguely like a strip teaser or early porn star, but, quite the contrary, she was a very pretty, homespun gal from Texas, named Josephine Owaissa Cottle, who won a talent contest when she was quite young, right out of high school. She and her mom moved to Hollywood and would spend the next twelve years of her life testing the dreammaking machinery and finding some limited success (the name "Gale Storm" had apparently been reserved in advance for whoever won the talent contest back in Texas).
She had a nice voice and was almost immediately typecast as the kid sister or hero's gal pal in a series of B-movie musicals.
Her career took off in a completely different direction when the early television producer, Hal Roach, cast her to star opposite an ex-silent film star, Charles "Charlie" Farrell, as Farrells' daffy, scheming daughter. The show was called, "My Little Margie".
The series debuted in 1952 as a summer replacement for "I Love Lucy", and just took off.
The two stars seemed to have a real chemistry going. Farrell gave Gale a kind of "class" that she never had in her B-movie days, while Storm allowed Farrell to reveal a side to himself seldom seen by "the old ladies with blue hair" who had formed his fan base until then.
At age 59, Farrell suddenly discovered he had a gift for broad, sometimes even, slapstick, comedy.
But, that was only part of it. The plots may have been simplistic and broadly humorous, but the sets. Oh, the sets! They were like something out of Ernst Lubitsch: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Lubitsch The Albright apartment was supposed to be located in Manhattan (even though the show was shot entirely in Hollywood -- you can tell by how bright the sunlight is in the exterior shots) so, to create the illusion of wealth and sophistication -- a key ingredient in the early screwball comedies pioneered by Lubitsch -- the scenery was blocked in such a way as to suggest a spacious layout with a wide corridor running through the middle of a gigantic apartment.
There were expressionist paintings hanging on the walls and the centerpiece of the action was always in front of a brick fireplace raised on a flagstone pedestal. Van Nest Polglase could not have designed a better "fake" set: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0689026/
In essence, the Albrights were the complete opposites of "The Goldbergs" http://johnwesley73.livejournal.com/290491.html. And, it was no wonder that we watched both shows in syndication, pretty much, five days a week, for years at my Aunt Tine's house.
Her stage name may have made her sound vaguely like a strip teaser or early porn star, but, quite the contrary, she was a very pretty, homespun gal from Texas, named Josephine Owaissa Cottle, who won a talent contest when she was quite young, right out of high school. She and her mom moved to Hollywood and would spend the next twelve years of her life testing the dreammaking machinery and finding some limited success (the name "Gale Storm" had apparently been reserved in advance for whoever won the talent contest back in Texas).
She had a nice voice and was almost immediately typecast as the kid sister or hero's gal pal in a series of B-movie musicals.
Her career took off in a completely different direction when the early television producer, Hal Roach, cast her to star opposite an ex-silent film star, Charles "Charlie" Farrell, as Farrells' daffy, scheming daughter. The show was called, "My Little Margie".
The series debuted in 1952 as a summer replacement for "I Love Lucy", and just took off.
The two stars seemed to have a real chemistry going. Farrell gave Gale a kind of "class" that she never had in her B-movie days, while Storm allowed Farrell to reveal a side to himself seldom seen by "the old ladies with blue hair" who had formed his fan base until then.
At age 59, Farrell suddenly discovered he had a gift for broad, sometimes even, slapstick, comedy.
But, that was only part of it. The plots may have been simplistic and broadly humorous, but the sets. Oh, the sets! They were like something out of Ernst Lubitsch: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Lubitsch The Albright apartment was supposed to be located in Manhattan (even though the show was shot entirely in Hollywood -- you can tell by how bright the sunlight is in the exterior shots) so, to create the illusion of wealth and sophistication -- a key ingredient in the early screwball comedies pioneered by Lubitsch -- the scenery was blocked in such a way as to suggest a spacious layout with a wide corridor running through the middle of a gigantic apartment.
There were expressionist paintings hanging on the walls and the centerpiece of the action was always in front of a brick fireplace raised on a flagstone pedestal. Van Nest Polglase could not have designed a better "fake" set: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0689026/
In essence, the Albrights were the complete opposites of "The Goldbergs" http://johnwesley73.livejournal.com/290491.html. And, it was no wonder that we watched both shows in syndication, pretty much, five days a week, for years at my Aunt Tine's house.