Actress Gail Storm Dead At Age 87 | digtriad.com | Triad, NC | Watercooler News Article: "Gale Storm, whose wholesome appearance and perky personality made her one of early television's biggest stars, has died at age 87.
The actress died Saturday at a convalescent hospital in Danville, said her son, Peter Bonnell. He says she died of natural causes.
Storm was a Texas high schooler named Josephine Owaissa Cottle when she won a talent contest for a radio show called 'Gateway to Hollywood' on New Year's Day 1940.
Soon she was in Los Angeles, making movies with Jackie Cooper, Eddie Albert and Audie Murphy.
In 1952 she landed the starring role in 'My Little Margie,' which quickly became an audience favorite and ran until 1955."
5 comments:
I used to watch Gale Storm in afternoon repeats of both My Little Margie and Oh, Susanna when I was growing up in the sixties.
This has been one hell of a week for celebrity deaths. I don't remember a run like this since July of 1973 (when I first began noticing these clusters): Otto Klemperer, Veronica Lake, Lon Chaney, Jr., Robert Ryan, Jack Hawkins, and Bruce Lee - in the space of two weeks.
I think she may have been my first crush. Other than Kate Green, of course. But that was kindergarten.
I loved My Little Margie.
Sometime back in the seventies I was doing commercials out of Minneapolis and free lancing articles and stories to a lot of bottom feeding magazines. Gale Storm was appearing at (I think--been a long time) a dinner theater. I arranged for an interview but for some reason it got postponed and then never happened. I liked her but I was equally curious to find out what it was like to work on Edgar G. Ulmer's Club Havana. She was one of the stars. Had to be in her early twenties. Given the four day shooting schedule and the sub-minimal budget you wouldn't think Ulmer would even attempt a relatively complicated musical number with Storm and dancers but he did. He also shot the last several minutes of it in a parking lot (I think) at night. Maybe it was day for night. But whichever it wasn't the kind of shot most Monogram directors would ever have tried--let alone pulled off. She was a cutie, all right.
Wow. I missed that one. Jackie was a HUGE fan of My Little Margie and also watched Oh, Susannah, which I believe had the great Zasu Pitts as her co-star.
RIP
Jeff
Last time I saw her was a good 25 years ago on, I think, The Tonight Show. It was one of those "Are you making a comeback?" "I never went away." moments. Apparently she drank heavily at one time. Very sad, because she was lovely and always seemed so joyful.
Post a Comment