Julie Gibson: Longest-Lived Person on Travalanche!

I don’t know if it’s true to a certainty, but it sure sounds correct — of the thousands of public figures I have profiled on Travalanche, the longest-lived was likely Julie Gibson (Gladys Camille Spray, 1913-2019). 106 years old! If her obit was widely circulated when she passed I do not know — I was somewhat busy that year what with one thing and another. But there’s no time like the present, on what would be her 112th birthday.

Was it clean living that kept her going so long? It’s more than possible — she was from Idaho, after all. She first began singing (and playing uke) in front of audiences with her sister and friends at the Grenada Theatre, in Lewiston, ID. This was in the 1920s! And she died only six years ago! In the ’30s she sang with big bands in nightclubs and on radio, touring western cities like Portland and Salt Lake, eventually making her way to Los Angeles. She fronted Eddie Duchin‘s orchestra, and became a regular on Joe Penner’s radio show. She was briefly married to bandleader Jimmy Grier from 1939 to 1940.

Gibson appeared in movies throughout the 1940s. Most of her roles were bit parts and walk-ons, though she was occasionally featured as a singer, as in The Feminine Touch (1941) and Hail, the Conquering Hero (1944). She was a chorus girl in The Shopworn Angel (1938) and Let’s Face It (1943). Many of her larger roles were in Three Stooges shorts: Three Smart Saps (1942, in which she played a character named Stella Stevens!), and Sock-a-Bye Baby (1942). She actually played the female lead in a Columbia short called Lucky Cowboy (1944) and in the serial Chick Carter, Detective (1946). She also has a good role in Bowery Buckaroos (1947) with the Bowery Boys. Other notable films she appeared included Going My Way (1944, as a lady cab driver), Duffy’s Tavern (1945), and the carnival story Are You With It? (1948)

In 1948 and 1949 Gibson worked in Paris as the onscreen hostess for the film series Paris Cavalcade of Fashions, replacing Faye Emerson in the job. This led to a brief stint in the back office, where she worked in the publicity department for the John Huston movies Moulin Rouge (1952), and Beat the Devil (1953). She then did several guest shots on live tv dramas and got a fourth-billed part in the independent crime thriller Street of Darkness (1958). She returned to the screen 20 years later in a small role in the tv mini-series The Awakening Land (1978) with Hal Holbrook and Elizabeth Montgomery.

In the ’60s and early ’70s, Gibson worked as a dialogue supervisor on movies like The Outrage (1964) and The Cool Ones (1967) and the tv series Family Affair. In 1973 she married director and former performer Charles Barton. Barton passed away in 1981. At the age of 68, I’m sure Gibson never dreamt that she would live to be a widow for another four decades!

For more on show biz history please see No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous,