Gale Storm
Acting
Biography
Josephine Owaissa Cottle, known professionally as Gale Storm, was an American actress and singer who starred in two popular television programs of the 1950s, My Little Margie and The Gale Storm Show. Six of her songs were top ten hits. Storm's greatest success was a cover version of "I Hear You Knockin'," which hit #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1955. When Storm was 17, two of her teachers urged her to enter a contest on Gateway to Hollywood, broadcast from the CBS Radio studios in Hollywood. First prize was a one-year contract with a movie studio. She won and was immediately given the stage name Gale Storm. Her performing partner (and future husband), Lee Bonnell from South Bend, Indiana, became known as Terry Belmont. Storm had a role in the radio version of Big Town. After winning the contest in 1940, Storm made several films for the RKO Radio Pictures studio. Her first was Tom Brown's School Days, playing opposite Jimmy Lydon and Freddie Bartholomew. She worked steadily in low-budget films released during this period. In 1941, she sang in several soundies, three-minute musicals produced for "movie jukeboxes". She acted and sang in Monogram Pictures' Frankie Darro series, and played ingénue roles in other Monogram features with the East Side Kids, Edgar Kennedy, and the Three Stooges, most notably in the film Swing Parade of 1946. Monogram had always relied on established actors with reputations, but in Gale Storm, the studio finally had a star of its own. She played the lead in the studio's most elaborate productions, both musical and dramatic. She shared top billing in Monogram's Cosmo Jones, Crime Smasher, opposite Edgar Kennedy, Richard Cromwell, and Frank Graham in the role of Jones, a character derived from network radio. Storm starred in a number of films, including the romantic comedies G.I. Honeymoon and It Happened on Fifth Avenue, the Western Stampede, and the 1950 film-noir dramas The Underworld Story and Between Midnight and Dawn. U.S. audiences warmed to Storm and her fan mail increased. She performed in more than three dozen motion pictures for Monogram, experience which made possible her success in other media. In the 1950s, she made singing appearances on such television variety programs as The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom. In 1950, Storm made her television debut in Hollywood Premiere Theatre on ABC. From 1952 to 1955, she starred in My Little Margie, with former silent film actor Charles Farrell as her father. The series began as a summer replacement for I Love Lucy on CBS, but ran for 126 episodes on NBC and then CBS. The series was broadcast on CBS Radio from December 1952 to August 1955 with the same actors. Her 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 (Oh! Susanna), featuring another silent movie star, ZaSu Pitts. The show ran for 143 episodes on CBS and ABC 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 CBS's What's My Line?
Known For
The Mike Douglas Show is an American daytime television talk show hosted by Mike Douglas that originally aired only in the Cleveland area during much of its first two years on the air. It then went into syndication in 1963 and remained on television until 1982. It was distributed by Westinghouse Broadcasting and for much of its run, originated from studios of two of the company's TV stations in Cleveland and Philadelphia.
The Mike Douglas Show
An unassuming mystery writer turned sleuth uses her professional insight to help solve real-life homicide cases.
Murder, She Wrote
Passengers who search for romantic nights aboard a beautiful ship travelling to tropical or mysterious countries, decide to pass their vacation aboard the "Love Boat", where Gopher, Dr. Bricker, Isaac, Julie, and Captain Stubing try their best to please them, and sometimes help them fall in love. Things are not always so easy, but in the end, love wins.
The Love Boat
Robert Montgomery Presents is an American dramatic television series which was produced by NBC from January 30, 1950 until June 24, 1957. The live show had several sponsors during its seven-year run, and the title was altered to feature the sponsor, usually Lucky Strike cigarettes, for example, Robert Montgomery Presents Your Lucky Strike Theater, ....The Johnson's Wax Program, and so on.
Robert Montgomery Presents
Four panelists must determine guests' occupations - and, in the case of famous guests, while blindfolded, their identity - by asking only "yes" or "no" questions.
What's My Line?
Burke's Law is an American detective series that ran on ABC from 1963 to 1965 and was revived on CBS in the 1990s. The show starred Gene Barry as Amos Burke, millionaire captain of Los Angeles police homicide division, who was chauffeured around to solve crimes in his Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud II.
Burke's Law
The Ed Sullivan Show is an American TV variety show that originally ran on CBS from Sunday June 20, 1948 to Sunday June 6, 1971, and was hosted by New York entertainment columnist Ed Sullivan. It was replaced in September 1971 by the CBS Sunday Night Movie, which ran only one season and was eventually replaced by other shows. In 2002, The Ed Sullivan Show was ranked #15 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.
The Ed Sullivan Show
The Colgate Comedy Hour is an American comedy-musical variety series that aired live on the NBC network from 1950 to 1955. The show starred many notable comedians and entertainers of the era, including Eddie Cantor, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Fred Allen, Donald O'Connor, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, Bob Hope, Jimmy Durante, Ray Bolger, Gordon MacRae, Ben Blue, Robert Paige, Tony Curtis, Burt Lancaster, Broadway dancer Wayne Lamb and Spike Jones and His City Slickers.
The Colgate Comedy Hour
This show started in New York City, with Broadway actors and actresses. It then moved to Hollywood, California, where Hollywood actors and actresses headed the cast.
The Ford Television Theatre
The Bob Hope Show hosted by Bob Hope, debuted on April 9, 1950. During the 1952-1953 season, NBC rotated with other variety shows in a Sunday night block known as "The Colgate Comedy Hour" (Sept. 1950 to Dec. 1955). Also known as, "The Chevy Show with Bob Hope." When the first special debuted in October of 1950 it was the most expensive television program made up to that point - costing an astronomical $1,500 a minute to produce. Bob Hope had his own television show and radio show at the same time. For the next three seasons, The Bob Hope Show was broadcast once a month on Tuesday nights, giving Milton Berle a week off. Bob ended his radio show in April, 1956. Bob Hope also had another show by a similar name, "The Bob Hope Show (All Star Revue)". In addition, he performed in "Specials" for many years. It is the longest running variety program in television's history with a record of 45 years of televised entertainment.
The Bob Hope Show
The Dinah Shore Chevy Show is an American variety series hosted by Dinah Shore, and broadcast on NBC from October 1956 to June 1963. The series was sponsored by the Chevrolet Motor Division of General Motors and its theme song, sung by Shore, was "See the U.S.A. in Your Chevrolet", which continued to be used in Chevrolet advertising for several more years after the cancellation of the show.
The Dinah Shore Chevy Show
This Is Your Life is an American television documentary series broadcast on NBC, originally hosted by its producer, Ralph Edwards from 1952 to 1961. In the show, the host surprises a guest, and proceeds to take them through their life in front of an audience, including special guest appearances by colleagues, friends and family. Edwards revived the show in 1971-72, while Joseph Campanella hosted a version in 1983. Edwards returned for some specials in the late 1980s, before his death in 2005. The show originated as a radio show on NBC Radio airing from 1948 to 1952.
This Is Your Life
Walt Disney Productions has produced an anthology television series under several different titles since 1954. The original version of the series premiered on ABC, Wednesday night, October 27, 1954. The show, which was hosted by Walt Disney until his death and then from 1996 to 2002 by then-CEO Michael Eisner (with one-off hosts or no hosts during other periods) has since aired continually as either a weekly program or an irregular series of specials on several networks and streaming services, most recently on ABC and Disney+. The show is the second longest showing prime-time program on American television, behind its rival, Hallmark Hall of Fame. However, Hallmark Hall of Fame was a weekly program only during its first five seasons, while Disney remained a weekly program for more than forty years.
The Wonderful World of Disney
The Gale Storm Show is an American sitcom starring Gale Storm. The series premiered on September 29, 1956, and ran until 1960 for 143 half-hour black-and-white episodes, initially on CBS and in its last year on ABC. The Gale Storm Show was co-produced by Independent Television Corporation and Hal Roach Studios. The series was aired under the title Oh, Susanna in syndication.
The Gale Storm Show
My Little Margie is an American situation comedy starring Gale Storm and Charles Farrell that alternated between CBS and NBC from 1952 to 1955.
My Little Margie
Film based on the story of Al Jennings, a former train robber turned attorney.
Al Jennings of Oklahoma
A New Yorker hobo moves into a mansion and along the way he gathers friends to live in the house with him. Before he knows it, he is living with the actual home owners.
It Happened on Fifth Avenue
A young woman who has been stricken with infantile paralysis gives up hope and is trying to "will herself" to die. A doctor who has been conducting experiments with patients with paralyzed nerves is convinced he can cure her.
Forever Yours
A showgirl trying to advance her career must hide the fact she is caring for a baby. With N.T.G. and The Florentine Gardens Revue, Ted Fio Rito and his Orchestra, the Mills Brothers, and Candy Candido (The Man of a Thousand Voices).
Rhythm Parade
Celebrity Playhouse is an American drama series that aired on NBC from September 1955, to June 1956.