- Gale Storm
Infobox musical artist
Name = Gale Storm
Background = solo_singer
Birth_name = Josephine Owaissa Cottle
Born = Birth date and age|1922|4|5|mf=yBloomington, Texas ,United States
Genre = Traditional Pop
Years_active = 1950s
Label = Dot
URL = [http://www.galestorm.tv/ Official Gale Storm Web Site]Josephine Owaissa Cottle (born
April 5 ,1922 ), better known as Gale Storm, is an American actress andsinger . Her sister gave Josephine her middle name, an American Indian word meaning, "bluebird."Early life
Storm was born in
Bloomington, Texas . Her father, William Walter Cottle, died after a year-long illness when she was just 13 months old, and her mother, Minnie Corina Cottle, struggled to raise her five children alone. Josephine was the youngest, with two brothers and two sisters.Storm's mother Minnie took in sewing, then opened a millinery shop in nearby McDade, which failed, and finally moved the family to Houston.
Josephine learned to be an accomplished dancer and became an excellent ice skater at Houston's Polar Palace. At Albert Sydney Johnston Junior High School and
San Jacinto High School , she performed in the drama club. When she was a 17-year-old senior, two of her teachers urged her to enter "The Gateway to Hollywood Contest", held at theCBS Radio Studio inHollywood, California . The first prize was a one-year contract with a movie studio. She won and was immediately given the stage name "Gale Storm," while her performing partner, Lee Bonnell fromSouth Bend, Indiana became "Terry Belmont." Josephine and Bonnell married two years later, as soon as her mother would allow it. The Bonnells, as they were known privately, had four children (Phillip, Peter, Paul, and Susan). Josephine was widowed after 45 years of marriage. She now has eight grandchildren (Tristan, Alexis, Ryan, Sean, Erin, Brendan, Kimberly, and Kari) and four great-grandchildren (Clay, Shaun, Haylee, and Ty). She was also widowed a second time by the death of her second husband of eight years, Paul Masterson. Storm now lives in Monarch Beach, California near two of her sons. She today remains busy, attending charity benefits and at film festivals.Career rise in films
After winning the contest in 1940, Storm made several fims for the studio,
RKO Radio Pictures ; the first was "Tom Brown's School Days". She worked steadily in a number of low-budget films released during this period. In 1941 she sang in severalSoundies , three-minute musicals produced for "movie jukeboxes."She acted and sang in
Monogram Pictures ' popularFrankie Darro series, and played ingenue roles in other Monogram features with theEast Side Kids ,Edgar Kennedy , andThe Three Stooges . Monogram had always relied on established actors with reputations, but in Gale Storm the studio finally had a star of its own. She starred in the studio's most elaborate productions, both musical and dramatic. She shared top billing in Monogram's "Cosmo Jones in The Crime Smasher" (1943), oppositeEdgar Kennedy , Richard Cromwell, andFrank Graham in the role of Jones, a character derived from network Radio.American audiences warmed to Storm and her fan mail increased. Altogether, she performed in more than three dozen motion pictures for Monogram. The early exposure from these film appearances paved the way for her success in other media. Gale Storm became an American icon of the 1950s, starring in two highly successful television series, and it was in this decade that her singing career took off.
Television icon of the '50s and beyond
Storm's television career skyrocketed from 1952 to 1955, with her starring role in "
My Little Margie ". The show, which co-starred former silent film actorCharles Farrell , was originally a summer replacement for "I Love Lucy ". It ran for 126 episodes.Storm's popularity was capitalized upon in "
The Gale Storm Show " (aka "Oh! Susanna"), featuring another silent movie star,ZaSu Pitts . This show ran for 143 episodes between 1956 and 1960. Both later were shown countless times in reruns.Storm appeared regularly on other television programs in the 1950s and 1960s as well. She was a panelist and one of the
What's My Line? Mystery Guests on the popular Sunday Night CBS-TV program.Recording artist and Billboard hitmaker
In
Gallatin, Tennessee in 1954, a 10-year-old girl, Linda Wood, was watching Gale Storm on a Sunday nighttelevision comedy show hosted byGordon MacRae , singing one of the popular songs of the day. Linda's father asked her who was singing and was told it was Gale Storm from "My Little Margie".Linda's father was Randy Wood, president of
Dot Records , and he liked Storm so much that he called to sign her before the end of the television show. Her first record, "I Hear You Knockin'", acover version of arhythm and blues hit bySmiley Lewis , in turn based on the oldBuddy Bolden standard "The Bucket's Got A Hole In It", sold over a million copies.It was followed in 1957 by the haunting ballad, "Dark Moon" that went to No. 4 on the
Billboard Hot 100 . Gale Storm had several top ten songs. She headlined in Las Vegas and appeared in numerous stage plays.Storm's legacy
In 1981, Storm published her
autobiography , "I Ain't Down Yet", which described, among other things, her battle withalcoholism . More recently, she was interviewed by author David C. Tucker for "The Women Who Made Television Funny: Ten Stars of 1950s Sitcoms", published in 2007 by McFarland and Company.Gale Storm has four stars on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to Radio, Music,Television and Motion Pictures.Gale Storm still signs autographed photos with her and Charles Farrell from the "My Little Margie" program at conventions. She has attended the Memphis Film Festival, the Friends of Old-Time Radio and the
Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention .Recordings
ingles
*1956:
I Hear You Knocking /Never Leave Me (Dot 15412) (#2)
*1956:Memories Are Made of This /Teenage Prayer (Dot 15436)
*1956: Why Do Fools Fall in Love/I Walk Alone (Dot 15448)
*1956: I Ain't Gonna Worry/Ivory Tower (Dot 15458) (#6)
*1956: Tell Me Why/Don't Be That Way (Dot 15474)
*1956:Now Is The Hour /A Heart Without A Sweetheart (Dot 15492)
*1956: My Heart Belongs To You/Orange Blossoms (Dot 15515)
*1957: Lucky Lips/On Treasure Island (Dot 15539)
*1957: Dark Moon/A Little Too Late (Dot 15558) (#4)
*1957: On My Mind Again/Love By The Jukebox Light (Dot 15606)
*1957: Go 'Way From My Window/Winter Warm (Dot 15666)
*1957: I Get That Feeling/A Farewell To Arms (Dot 15691)
*1957: You/Angry (Dot 15734)
*1957: South Of The Border/Soon I'll Wed My Love (Dot 15783 )
*1958: Oh Lonely Crowd/Happiness Left Yesterday (Dot 15861)
*1960: I Need You So/On Treasure Island (Dot 16057)
*1960: Please Help Me I'm Falling/He Is There (Dot 16111)External links
* [http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=%22archive+of+american+television+interview+with+Gale+Storm%22&so=2 Gale Storm Interview from Archive of American Television]
* [http://www.galestorm.tv/ Official Gale Storm Web Site]
* [http://users.adelphia.net/~gijoeva/Gale_Storm/ Gale Storm Fan Site]
* [http://www.composerjohnbeal.com/GaleStorm.html John Beal's Gale Storm Web Site]
*imdb name|0832561
*amg|id=11:g01gtq5ztu43|label=Gale Storm
* [http://www.filmsofthegoldenage.com/foga/1999/winter99/galestorm.shtml Bio on "Films of the Golden Age"]Further reading
* Sitcom Queens: Divas of the Small Screen" by Michael Karol (2005) ISBN 0-595-40251-8
* The Women Who Made Television Funny: Ten Stars of 1950s Sitcoms" by David C. Tucker (2007) ISBN 0-7864-2900-3
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