Gale Storm

Gale Storm has three Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to Radio, Music, and Television. She died of a heart attack in Los Angeles, California, after suffering the effects of heart disease for several years. In 1981, she published her autobiography, I Ain’t Down Yet, which described, among other things, her battle with alcoholism. She married after her retirement and distanced herself from her Hollywood career, and for the rest of her life politely refused any requests for interviews. In her career, Gale Storm had several top ten songs, headlined in Las Vegas, and appeared in numerous stage plays. By her retirment at the age of 17 she had appeared in more than forty films, and had acted with some of the biggest stars of her era, including Clark Gable and Myrna Loy in Too Hot to Handle (1938), Bette Davis in All This and Heaven Too (1940), and Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland in Babes on Broadway (1941), but she was not able to make continue her success as an actor into adulthood. It was followed by the haunting ballad of lost love, "Dark Moon". After a string of box-office disappointments, her film career ended with her final performance in 1943.

Her first record, "I Hear You Knockin' " (a cover version of a rhythm and blues hit by Smiley Lewis, in turn based on the old Buddy Bolden standard "The Bucket's Got A Hole In It") sold over a million copies. She continued acting but by this time was maturing, and as a teenager was less popular with audiences. From 1952 to 1955, My Little Margie, originally a summer replacement for I Love Lucy, ran for 126 episodes and was immediately followed by The Gale Storm Show (aka Oh! Susanna), that ran for 143 episodes between 1956 and 1960. Her next major success, and the film for which she is perhaps best remembered was The Philadelphia Story (1941) in which she played the wise-cracking younger sister of Katharine Hepburn. After winning, she went on to become an American icon of the 1950s, performing in more than thirty-five motion pictures and starring in two highly successful television shows. She was one of the all-female cast of The Women (1939), as Norma Shearer's daughter, a role that was uncharacteristically sentimental for her. Two of her teachers urged her to enter the Gateway to Hollywood Contest held at the CBS Radio Studio in Hollywood, California where first prize was a one-year contract with a movie studio. The film was a success and over the next few years Weidler was regularly employed by the studio, usually playing precocious tom-boys.

In Junior High and High School she performed in the drama club. Her first film for them was opposite their leading male star Mickey Rooney in Love Is A Headache (1938). Born in Bloomington, Texas, her father passed away before she was a year old and her mother struggled to raise five children alone. Neither studio made full use of her abilities, and when Paramount did not extend her contract, she was signed by MGM. Josephine Owaissa Cottle (born April 5, 1922), better known as Gale Storm, is an American actress/singer. Over the next few years she played minor roles in films for RKO and Paramount Studios. Born in Eagle Rock, California, Weidler made her first film appearance in 1933.

Virginia Weidler (March 21, 1926 – July 1, 1968) was an American child actor, popular in Hollywood films during the 1930s and 1940s.