Dorothy Lamour Biography

Dorothy Lamour (December 10, 1914 " September 22, 1996) was an American actress and singer. She is best remembered for appearing in the Road to... movies, a series of successful comedies starring Bing Crosby and Bob Hope.

Lamour began her career in the 1930s as a big band singer. In 1936, she moved to Hollywood where she signed with Paramount Pictures. Her appearance as "Ulah" in The Jungle Princess (1936) brought her fame and also marked the beginning of her image as the "Sarong Queen."

In 1940, Lamour made her first Road to... comedy film, Road to Singapore. The Road to... films were popular during the 1940s. The sixth film in the series, Road to Bali, was released in 1952. By that time, Lamour's screen career began to wane and she focused on stage and television work. In 1961, Crosby and Hope teamed up for one more, The Road to Hong Kong, but actress Joan Collins was cast as the female lead. Lamour made a brief appearance and sang a song near the end of that film.

In the 1970s, Lamour revived her nightclub act and, in 1980, released her autobiography My Side of the Road. She made her final onscreen appearance in 1987.

Lamour married her second husband, William Ross Howard III, in 1943. They had two sons and remained married until Howard's death in 1978. Lamour died at her home in 1996 at the age of 81.

Early life

Born Mary Leta Dorothy Slaton in New Orleans, the daughter of Carmen Louise (née LaPorte) and John Watson Slaton, both of whom were waiters. Lamour was of French Louisianan, Spanish, and Irish descent. Her parents' marriage lasted only a few years. Her mother married for the second time to Clarence Lambour, whose surname Dorothy later adopted and modified as her stage name. That marriage also ended in divorce when Dorothy was a teenager.

Lamour quit school at the age of 14 and, after taking a business course, worked as a secretary to support herself and her mother. She began entering beauty pageants and was crowned "Miss New Orleans" in 1931. Lamour used the prize money to support herself while she worked in a stock theatre company. She and her mother later moved to Chicago where Lamour found a job working at Marshall Field's department store. She was discovered by orchestra leader Herbie Kay when he spotted her in performance at a Chicago talent show held at the Hotel Morrison. Kay hired her as a singer for his orchestra and, in 1935, Lamour went on tour with Kay. Her work with Kay eventually led Lamour to vaudeville and work in radio. In 1935, she had her own fifteen-minute weekly musical program on NBC Radio. Lamour also sang on the popular Rudy Vallee radio show and The Chase and Sanborn Hour.

Career

In 1936, Lamour moved to Hollywood. That same year, she did a screen test for Paramount Pictures and signed a contract with them. Lamour began appearing regularly in films for Paramount Pictures. She made her first film for Paramount, College Holiday, in which she has a bit part as an uncredited dancer. Her second film for Paramount, The Jungle Princess (1936), solidified her fame. In the film, Lamour plays the role of "Ulah", a jungle native who wore an Edith Head-designed sarong throughout the film. The Jungle Princess was a big hit for the studio and Lamour would be associated with sarongs for the rest of her career. From 1937 to 1939, Lamour appeared in John Ford's The Hurricane (1937), Spawn of the North (1938; with George Raft, Henry Fonda, and John Barrymore), and Disputed Passage (1939).

In 1940, Lamour co-starred in the first of several Road to... films with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. The movies were enormously popular during the 1940s, and they regularly placed among the top moneymaking films each year. While the films centered more on Hope and Crosby, Lamour held her own as their "straight man", and sang some of her most popular songs. The series essentially ended with the release of Road to Bali in 1952.

During World War II, Lamour was among the most popular pinup girls among American servicemen, along with Betty Grable, Rita Hayworth, Lana Turner, and Veronica Lake. Lamour was also known for her volunteer working selling war bonds during tours in which movie stars would travel the country selling U.S. government bonds to the public. Lamour reportedly sold $300 million worth of bonds earning her the nickname "The Bombshell of Bombs". She also volunteered at the Hollywood Canteen where she would dance and talk to soldiers. In 1965, Lamour was awarded a belated citation from the United States Department of the Treasury for her war bond sales.

Some of Lamour's other notable films include Johnny Apollo (1940; with Tyrone Power), Aloma of the South Seas (1941), Beyond the Blue Horizon (1942), Dixie (1943; with Bing Crosby), A Medal for Benny (1945), My Favorite Brunette (1947; with Bob Hope), On Our Merry Way (1948) and a supporting role in the best picture Oscar-winner The Greatest Show on Earth (1952; with Charlton Heston). Her other leading men included William Holden, Ray Milland, James Stewart, Jack Benny, and Fred MacMurray.

Lamour starred in a number of movie musicals and sang in many of her comedies and dramatic films as well. She introduced a number of standards, including "The Moon of Manakoora", "I Remember You", "It Could Happen to You", "Personality", and "But Beautiful".

Lamour's film career declined in the early 1950s, and she began a new career as a nightclub entertainer and occasional stage actress. In the 1960s, she returned to the screen for secondary roles in three films, including John Ford's Donovan's Reef (1963) with John Wayne and Lee Marvin, and became more active in the legitimate theater, headlining a road company of Hello Dolly! for over a year near the end of the decade.

Later years

In the 1970s, Lamour was a popular draw on the dinner theatre circuit.

In 1980, Lamour published her autobiography, My Side of the Road and revived her nightclub act. During the remainder of the decade, she performed in plays and television shows such as Hart to Hart, Crazy Like a Fox, Remington Steele and Murder, She Wrote.

During the 1990s, she made only a handful of professional appearances but remained a popular interview subject for publications and TV talk and news programs. In 1995, the musical Swinging on a Star, a revue of songs written by Johnny Burke opened on Broadway and ran for three months; Lamour was credited as a "special advisor." Burke wrote many of the most famous Road to ... movie songs as well as the score to Lamour's 1944 film And the Angels Sing. It was nominated for the Best Musical Tony Award, and the actress playing her in the road movie segment, Kathy Fitzgerald, was also nominated.

Personal life

Lamour's first marriage was to orchestra leader Herbie Kay whose orchestra Lamour sang with. The two married in 1935 and divorced in 1939. After her divorce from Kay, Lamour dated actor Robert Preston.

Early in her career, Lamour met J. Edgar Hoover, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. According to Hoover's biographer Richard Hack, Hoover pursued a romantic relationship with Lamour and the two spent a night together at a Washington, D.C. hotel. Lamour was later asked if she and Hoover had a sexual relationship to which she replied, "I cannot deny it." In her 1980 autobiography, My Side of the Road, Lamour does not discuss Hoover in detail, only referring to him as "a lifelong friend".

On April 7, 1943, Lamour married former Air Force Captain and advertising executive William Ross Howard III in Beverly Hills. The couple had two sons: John Ridgely (born January 1946) and Richard Thomson Howard (born October 1949).

In the 1960s and 1970s, Lamour and Howard lived in the Baltimore suburb of Sudbrook Park. Howard died in 1978.

Death

On September 22, 1996, Lamour died at her home in North Hollywood at the age of 81. She was interred in the Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles.

For her contribution to the radio and motion picture industry, Dorothy Lamour has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Her star for her radio contributions is located at 6240 Hollywood Boulevard and her star for her motion picture contributions is located at 6332 Hollywood Boulevard.

Selected filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1936	College Holiday	Dancer	Uncredited
1936	The Jungle Princess	Ulah
1937	Swing High, Swing Low	Anita Alvarez
1937	High, Wide, and Handsome	Molly Fuller
1937	The Hurricane	Marama
1938	The Big Broadcast of 1938	Dorothy Wyndham
1938	Her Jungle Love	Tura
1938	Tropic Holiday	Manuela
1938	Spawn of the North	Nicky Duval
1939	St. Louis Blues	Norma Malone
1939	Man About Town	Diana Wilson
1939	Disputed Passage	Audrey, Hilton
1940	Road to Singapore	Mima
1940	Johnny Apollo	Lucky Dubarry
1940	Chad Hanna	Albany Yates/Lady Lillian
1941	Road to Zanzibar	Donna Latour
1940	Typhoon
1941	Caught in the Draft	Antoinette "Tony" Fairbanks
1941	Aloma of the South Seas	Aloma
1942	The Fleet's In	The Countess
1942	Road to Morocco	Princess Shalmar
1942	Star Spangled Rhythm	Herself
1943	They Got Me Covered	Christina Hill
1943	Dixie	Millie Cook
1943	Riding High	Ann Castle
1944	And the Angels Sing	Nancy Angel
1945	A Medal for Benny	Lolita Sierra
1945	Duffy's Tavern	Herself
1945	Masquerade in Mexico	Angel O'Reilly
1946	Road to Utopia	Sal Van Hoyden
1947	My Favorite Brunette	Carlotta Montay	Alternative title: The Private Eye
1947	Variety Girl	Herself
1947	Wild Harvest	Fay Rankin
1947	Road to Rio	Lucia Maria de Andrade
1948	On Our Merry Way	Gloria Manners	Alternative title: A Miracle Can Happen
1948	Lulu Belle	Lulu Belle
1949	Manhandled	Merl Kramer
1951	Here Comes the Groom	Herself
1952	The Greatest Show on Earth	Phyllis
1952	Road to Bali	Princess Lala
1962	The Road to Hong Kong	Herself
1963	Donovan's Reef	Miss Lafleur
1964	Pajama Party	Head Saleslady
1970	The Phynx	Herself
1976	Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood	Visiting Film Star
1987	Creepshow 2	Martha Spruce	Segment: "Old Chief Wood'nhead"

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1955	Damon Runyon Theater	Sally Bracken	Episode: "The Mink Doll"
1967	I Spy	Halima	Episode: "The Honorable Assassins"
1969	The Name of the Game	Stella Fisher	Episode: "Chains of Command"
1970	Love, American Style	Holly's Mother	Segment: "Love and the Pick-Up"
1971	Marcus Welby, M.D.	Mary DeSocio	Episode: "Echos from Another World"
1976	Death at Love House	Denise Christian	Television film Alternative title: The Shrine of Lorna Love
1980	The Love Boat	Lil Braddock	Episode: "That's My Dad/The Captain's Bird/Captive Audience"
1984	Hart to Hart	Katherine Prince	Episode: "Max's Waltz"
1984	Remington Steele	Dorothy Lamour	Episode: "Cast in Steele"
1986	Crazy like a Fox	Rosie	Episode: "Rosie"
1987	Murder, She Wrote	Mrs. Ellis	Episode: "No Accounting for Murder"

Broadway musicals

Year	Show
1958	Oh, Captain!
1995	Swinging on a Star

Books

Lamour was the heroine of a novel, Dorothy Lamour and the Haunted Lighthouse (1947, by Matilda Bailey), where "the heroine has the same name and appearance as the famous actress but has no connection ... it is as though the famous actress has stepped into an alternate reality in which she is an ordinary person." The story was written for a young teenage audience and is reminiscent of the adventures of Nancy Drew. It is part of a series known as "Whitman Authorized Editions", 16 books published between 1941-1947 that each featured a film actress as heroine.

Lamour's autobiography, My Side of the Road, was published by Prentice-Hall in 1980.

She also had a brief print run of 2-3 issues during the 1950s in "Dorothy Lamour Jungle Princess Comics", a series of comic books dedicated to her on-film Jungle Princess persona (featuring screen shots from past movies as the covers).