Gale Storm (April 5, 1922 – June 27, 2009) In 1950, Storm made her TV debut in Hollywood Premiere Theatre on ABC. From 1952 to 1955, she starred in My Little Margie. The show, which co-starred former silent film actor Charles Farrell as her father, was originally a summer replacement for I Love Lucy on CBS, but ran for 126 episodes on NBC and CBS. The series was broadcast on CBS Radio from December 1952 to August 1955 with the same actors. Storms popularity was capitalized on when she served as hostess of the NBC Comedy Hour in the winter of 1956. That year she starred in another situation comedy, The Gale Storm Show (aka Oh! Susanna), featuring another silent movie star, ZaSu Pitts. The Gale Storm show ran for 143 episodes between 1956 and 1960. Storm appeared regularly on other television programs in the 1950s and 1960s. She was both a panelist and a mystery guest on Whats My Line? In Gallatin, Tennessee, in November 1954, a 10-year-old girl, Linda Wood, was watching Storm on a Sunday night television variety show, NBCs Colgate Comedy Hour, hosted by Gordon MacRae, singing one of the popular songs of the day. Lindas father asked her who was singing and was told it was Gale Storm from My Little Margie. Lindas father Randy Wood was 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, a cover version of a rhythm and blues hit by Smiley Lewis, sold over a million copies. The follow-up was a two-sided hit, with Storm covering Dean Martins Memories Are Made of This backed with her cover of Gloria Manns A Teenage Prayer. That was followed by a hit cover of Frankie Lymons Why Do Fools Fall in Love. Storms subsequent record sales began to slide but soon rebounded with a cover of her own labelmate Bonnie Guitars haunting ballad Dark Moon that went to No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100. Storm had several other hits and headlined in Las Vegas and appeared in numerous stage plays. Amazingly, Storm only recorded for approximately two years with Dot and then gave up recording because of her husbands concerns with the time she had to devote to that career. Equally amazing, almost her entire recording career was based on her quickly recording cover versions of new hits by other artists (one, a cover of Joni James I Need You So, was never released). Many felt that Storms covers often were better than the originals, and she developed a large following Storm was married and widowed twice. In 1941, she married Lee Bonnell (1918–1986), then an actor and later a businessman. They had four children: Peter, Phillip, Paul and Susanna. In 1988, two years after she was widowed, she married Paul Masterson (1917–1996). Storm lived alone in Monarch Beach, California, near two of her sons and their families, until failing health forced her into a convalescent home, near San Francisco in Danville, California. She died there on June 27, 2009. Storm has four stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to film, television, recordings, and radio.
Posted on: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 01:07:39 +0000
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