Shirley Ross


Shirley Ross was an American actress and singer, notable for her duet with Bob Hope, "Thanks for the Memory" from The Big Broadcast of 1938. She appeared in 25 feature films between 1933 and 1945, including singing earlier and wholly different lyrics for the Rodgers and Hart song in Manhattan Melodrama that later became "Blue Moon."

Early musical career

Ross was born in Omaha, Nebraska, the elder of two daughters of Charles Burr Gaunt and Maude C. Gaunt. Growing up in California, she attended Hollywood High School and UCLA, training as a classical pianist.
By age 14, she was giving radio recitals and made her first vocal recordings at 20 with Gus Arnheim's band.
Here she attracted the notice of the up-and-coming songwriting duo Rodgers and Hart, who selected her to sell their latest offerings to the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer movie studio. One song, "Prayer," later rewritten as "Blue Moon", led to a successful screen test in 1933. This test, a duet with jazz vocalist Harry Barris, was edited into MGM's musical-comedy short subject Gentlemen of Polish, starring the comedy team of Al Shaw and Sam Lee.
MGM cast Ross in a number of small parts in films that included Manhattan Melodrama with Clark Gable and William Powell in which, made up to look black, she sang "The Bad in Every Man," an earlier version of "Blue Moon," in a Harlem nightclub.

Paramount

In 1936, MGM loaned her to Paramount, and she was paired with Ray Milland in The Big Broadcast of 1937. The Big Broadcast format emphasized musical numbers and comedy sketches with big-name performers who somewhat overshadowed her. However, she acquitted herself nicely as a flippant, all-night disc jockey, and delivered the scripted dialogue naturally. One press review declared that she had "one of the sweetest voices of any actress on the screen"’ and predicted a big future for her. Paramount signed her to a five-year contract; meanwhile her introduction to the songwriting team of Leo Robin and Ralph Rainger would prove significant.

Working with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope

Her duet with Bing Crosby in Waikiki Wedding was a Robin-Rainger number titled "Blue Hawaii." Thus began a three-year period during which Ross was cast opposite either Crosby or Bob Hope on five occasions.
After a career interruption in the making of This Way Please with Buddy Rogers, when she walked off the job, alleging that Jack Benny's wife, Mary Livingstone, was trying to sabotage her scenes, she was cast opposite Hope in The Big Broadcast of 1938. Their duet, "Thanks for the Memory", became a huge hit and a defining moment for two careers headed in opposite directions – for Hope, a springboard to bigger and better things; for Ross, the pinnacle. It would prove to be her sole enduring claim to fame.
The duet's great success sparked spin-off movies with Bob Hope, Thanks for the Memory and another called Some Like It Hot. Although Thanks for the Memory did produce another hit song, "Two Sleepy People", the films themselves made little impact, apparently reflecting Paramount's declining interest in musical comedy. Although Ross would have been willing to play straight drama and had performed well in Prison Wife, Paramount relegated her to supporting roles in two minor romantic comedies. Although one of them teamed her again with Crosby, these films failed to advance her career, which went into decline.

Later career

Although Ross knew that her understated appeal was better suited to the screen than the stage, she renewed her professional relationship with Rodgers and Hart, and played the lead in their Broadway musical Higher and Higher, featuring the song "It Never Entered My Mind." The show was a critical failure and ran for 108 performances. In 1942 director Arthur Lubin wanted Shirley Ross for the Abbott and Costello comedy Ride "Em Cowboy at Universal Pictures, but according to Anne Gwynne "they thought that she was too old. I heard this years afterward. He had to take me because I was under contract." Ross signed with Republic Pictures for feature films, and did some radio work, most notably as a regular cast member on The Bob Burns Show between 1943 and 1947. Burns worked closely with Bing Crosby, who may have engineered the assignment.

Personal life

Ross married agent Ken Dolan in 1938 at age 25. When he became ill Ross increasingly attended him, which became an early retirement for her. He died in 1951, when Ross was 38. She married Eddie Blum in 1955, when she was 42. She had 3 children. In 1959 she said that she had given up show business to devote her time to her children, and did not regret the decision a bit.

Death

Ross died from cancer in Menlo Park, California, aged 62. As her married name, Bernice Dolan Blum, was not well known, her death was not widely publicized. But Hope, with whom she had an enduring real-life friendship, did not fail to commemorate her death. He and Crosby sent a 5-foot tall cross with white carnations and a spray of red roses to her funeral. According to her daughter, the service was mobbed.

Filmography

  • Bombshell - Singer
  • Jail Birds of Paradise - Shirley Ross
  • Morocco Nights - Singer
  • Manhattan Melodrama - Singer in Cotton Club
  • Hollywood Party - Singer of 'Feelin' High'
  • What Price Jazz - Singer
  • The Girl from Missouri - Party Guest
  • Gentlemen of Polish - Singer
  • The Merry Widow - Minor Role
  • Buried Loot - Girl in Apartment
  • Two Hearts in Wax Time - Shirley
  • Age of Indiscretion - Dotty
  • Calm Yourself - Mrs. Ruth Rockwell
  • I Live My Life - Vi - drunken party guest dozing in armchair next to piano
  • It's in the Air - Cigar Stand Clerk
  • La Fiesta de Santa Barbara - Herself
  • Devil's Squadron - Eunice
  • San Francisco - Trixie
  • The Big Broadcast of 1937 - Gwen Holmes
  • Hideaway Girl - Toni Ainsworth
  • Waikiki Wedding - Georgia Smith
  • Blossoms on Broadway - Sally Shea
  • The Big Broadcast of 1938 - Cleo Fielding
  • Prison Farm - Jean Forest
  • Thanks for the Memory - Anne Merrick
  • Dangerous to Know - Herself / Singer on Recording
  • Paris Honeymoon - Barbara Wayne aka Countess De Remi
  • Cafe Society - Bells Browne
  • Some Like It Hot - Lily Racquel
  • Unexpected Father - Dianna Donovan
  • Kisses for Breakfast - Juliet Marsden
  • Sailors on Leave - Linda Hall
  • A Song for Miss Julie - Valerie Kimbro

    Press coverage

  • United Press: , The Pittsburgh Press, December 26, 1933, p. 18
  • NEA : , The Spokane Chronicle, p. 5
  • , The Milwaukee Sentinel, September 8, 1936, p. 17
  • The Pittsburgh Press, p. 27
  • Spokane Daily Chronicle, October 12, 1936, p. 10
  • Ed Sullivan: , The Pittsburgh Press, October 24, 1936, p. 6
  • , The Spartanburg Herald-Tribune, November 1, 1936, p. 20
  • The Lewiston Daily Sun, November 3, 1936, p. 2
  • Sheilah Graham: The Milwaukee Journal, November 16, 1936, p. 7
  • , The Deseret News, January 26, 1937, p. 11
  • Eileen Percy: , The Milwaukee Sentinel, April 30, 1937, p. 2
  • The San Jose News, June 14, 1937, p. 13
  • Louella O. Parsons: , The Rochester Journal, June 29, 1937, p. 6
  • The St. Petersburg Independent, August 20, 1937, p. 5-A
  • , The St. Petersburg Times, September 12, 1937, p. 22
  • United Press: , The Eugene Register-Guard, November 8, 1937, p. 6
  • , The Pittsburgh Press, February 5, 1938, p. 10
  • Associated Press wirephoto: The Spokane Spokesman-Review, March 5, 1938, p. 13
  • , The Rochester Daily Times, March 31, 1938, p. 7
  • , The Schenectady Gazette, May 18, 1938, p. 8
  • Jimmy Fidler: The Reading Eagle, June 22, 1938), p. 8
  • Sheilah Graham: The Milwaukee Journal, August 8, 1938, p. 2
  • , The Meriden Record, August 11, 1938, p. 13. "The man she loved put her in a prison more terrifying than Devil's Island."
  • The Pittsburgh Press, September 18, 1938, p. D7
  • Associated Press: , The Lawrence Journal-World, September 20, 1938, p. 12
  • Louella O. Parsons: The Milwaukee Sentinel, September 20, 1938, p. 3
  • The Spokane Chronicle, January 3, 1939, p. 14
  • The Melbourne Age, January 7, 1939, p. 12
  • Kaspar Monahan: The Pittsburgh Press, January 14, 1939, p. 6
  • Patricia Lindsay: , The Miami News, June 30, 1939, p. 4-C
  • L.S.B. Shapiro: , The Montreal Gazette, April 13, 1940, p. 10
  • Louella O. Parsons: , Milwaukee Sentinel, April 14, 1940, p. 7-D
  • Associated Press: The Miami News, May 4, 1940, p. 6-A
  • Jimmy Fidler: The Pittsburgh Press, August 19, 1940, p. 9
  • Dee Lowrance: , The Wilmington Star, June 29, 1941, p. 18
  • Captioned photo : , St. Petersburg Times, August 24, 1941, p. 21
  • , The Madera Tribune, January 29, 1942, p. 1
  • Associated Press: , The San Bernardino Sun, January 8, 1944, p. 2
  • Dorothy Kilgallen: , Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 24, 1944, p. 22
  • Louella O. Parsons: , Milwaukee Sentinel, July 2, 1945, p. 6
  • Rick Du Brow: , The Beaver Valley Times, July 20, 1959, p. 9
  • Polly Anderson: , The Lumberton Robesonian, May 25, 2003, p. 4C

    Miscellaneous

Category:1913 births
Category:1975 deaths
Category:Actresses from Omaha, Nebraska
Category:American film actresses
Category:American musical theatre actresses
Category:American radio personalities
Category:Deaths from cancer in California
Category:Hollywood High School alumni
Category:People from Menlo Park, California
Category:Musicians from Omaha, Nebraska
Category:Actresses from San Mateo County, California
Category:University of California, Los Angeles alumni
Category:20th-century American actresses
Category:20th-century American singers
Category:20th-century American women singers