The Dolores Gray Centennial

Born 100 years ago today, the great Broadway actress and nightclub performer Dolores Gray (Sylvia Dolores Finkelstein, 1924-2002). Not to be confused with the similar looking Dolores Fuller, whose centennial was last year! And anyway, this one won a Tony, and was nominated for another.

Gray was the child of two vaudeville performers; her dad went by the stage name Harry Vernon (not to be confused with Wally Vernon). Born in New York, she grew up in Los Angeles, and was already singing in nightclubs like Slapsie Maxie’s as a teenager. Dates on Rudy Vallee’s radio show helped her national exposure. At age 18 she sang in a nightclub scene in the movie Lady for a Night (1942) with Joan Blondell and John Wayne.

In 1943, she suffered an incident that might have ended both her career and her life. She was sitting at an outdoor cafe when she became collateral damage in a drive-by shooting. Her leg bone was shattered. There was also a bullet lodged in her chest. Its position was inoperable; it was never removed. Yet she recovered rapidly and continued her career almost as though nothing had happened. Two months later she was on stage again.

In 1944 she sang “It Had to Be You” in the movie Mr. Skeffington and appeared in the Broadway premiere of the revue The Seven Lively Artswith Bert Lahr, Bea Lillie, and Albert Carroll. The following year she was given her own radio show, and returned to Broadway for the carnival-themed Are You With It?, which though less well remembered than The Seven Lively Arts, enjoyed a slightly longer run. From 1947 through 1950 she starred in the London premiere of Annie Get Your Gun, Ethel Merman having turned the part down. Riding high from that experience, she returned to Broadway to co-star in Two On the Aisle (1951) with Lahr. Then, her Tony-winning performance in the short-lived Preston Sturges show Carnival in Flanders (1953). She also recorded dozens of tracks for Decca Records in the early ’50s.

Gray’s screen career was brief but respectable. Her four films as a star were It’s Always Fair Weather and Kismet (both 1955), The Opposite Sex (1956) and Designing Woman (1957). She returned to Broadway in 1959 to play Frenchy in the musical stage version of Destry Rides Again opposite Andy Griffith. Throughout the ’50s and ’60s she was a frequent sight on TV variety and talk shows like The Ed Sullivan Show, The Milton Berle Show,The Saturday Night Revue with Jack Carter,Kraft Music Hall, The Tonight Show with both Paar and Carson, Steve Allen’s various shows, Sunday Night at the London Palladium etc.

In 1967 she starred in Sherry! the Broadway musical version of The Man Who Came to Dinner. Other later triumphs included London productions of Gypsy (1973) and Follies (1987), a Royal Command Performance, and the original production of 42nd Street (1986). A 1988 episode of Dr. Who was one of her last professional credits.

For more on show biz history,consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, And please stay tuned for my upcomingElectric Vaudeville: A Century of Radio and TV Variety.