Fifi D'Orsay
Acting
Biography
Fifi D'Orsay was born Marie-Rose Angelina Yvonne Lussier in Montreal, Canada, to a father who was a postal clerk. The couple had a large family, with Fifi having 11 siblings. She was educated at the Academy of the Sacred Heart in Montreal before graduating and finding work as a secretary. As a young typist she wished to become an actress, and moved to New York City. Once there she found work with the Greenwich Village Follies, after an audition in which she sang "Yes! We Have No Bananas" in French. When asked where she was from, she told the director she was from Paris, France, and that she had worked in the Folies Bergère. The impressed director hired her, billing her as "Mademoiselle Fifi". While working in the Follies, she became involved with Ed Gallagher, a veteran actor who was half of the successful Broadway comedy team of Gallagher and Shean. Gallagher and D'Orsay put together a vaudeville act, and he coached her in the art of show business. After touring in vaudeville, she headed to Hollywood and adopted the surname "D'Orsay" (after a favorite perfume). Soon after she began working in films, often cast as the "naughty French girl" from "gay Paris". She became a U.S. citizen in 1936, just as her career as a film star came to a sharp halt when she walked out on her contract at Fox Studios and was blacklisted. While never becoming a major top-billing name, she found steady work - appearing with such stalwarts as Bing Crosby and Buster Crabbe. For years she worked in both film and vaudeville; pacing her appearances in film with continued performances in vaudeville. When age put an end to the glamour roles, she took jobs in television; including 2 appearances each on ABC's Adventures in Paradise (as a mother superior in the episode "Castaways"), and the CBS legal drama Perry Mason (in the episode "The Case of the Grumbling Grandfather" and in the episode “The Case of the Bountiful Beauty”)- as well appearing in the CBS sitcom Pete and Gladys. She was a contestant on Groucho Marx's You Bet Your Life, and at the age of sixty-seven she bookended her career with a return to the Broadway stage in the Tony Award-winning musical, Follies.
Known For
The cases of master criminal defense attorney Perry Mason and his staff who handled the most difficult of cases in the aid of the innocent.
Perry Mason
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
Samantha Stephens is a seemingly normal suburban housewife who also happens to be a genuine witch, with all the requisite magical powers. Her husband Darrin insists that Samantha keep her witchcraft under wraps, but situations invariably require her to indulge her powers while keeping her bothersome mother Endora at bay.
Bewitched
Combat! is an American television program that originally aired on ABC from 1962 until 1967. The show covered the grim lives of a squad of American soldiers fighting the Germans in France during World War II. The program starred Rick Jason as platoon leader Second Lieutenant Gil Hanley and Vic Morrow as Sergeant "Chip" Saunders.
Combat!
The Lucy Show is an American sitcom that aired on CBS from 1962–68. It was Lucille Ball's follow-up to I Love Lucy. A significant change in cast and premise for the 1965–66 season divides the program into two distinct eras; aside from Ball, only Gale Gordon, who joined the program for its second season, remained. For the first three seasons, Vivian Vance was the co-star. The earliest scripts were entitled The Lucille Ball Show, but when this title was declined, producers thought of calling the show This Is Lucy or The New Adventures of Lucy, before deciding on the title The Lucy Show. Ball won consecutive Emmy Awards as Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for the series' final two seasons, 1966–67 and 1967–68.
The Lucy Show
Thriller is an American anthology television series that aired during the 1960–61 and 1961–62 seasons on NBC. The show featured host Boris Karloff introducing a mix of self-contained, macabre weird-horror and morbid, hitchockian crime stories, in some of which he also starred.
Thriller
Adventures in Paradise is an American television series created by James Michener which ran on ABC from 1959 until 1962, starring Gardner McKay as Adam Troy, the captain of the schooner Tiki III, which sailed the South Pacific looking for passengers and adventure. USA Network aired reruns of this series between 1984 and 1988. The plots deal with the romantic and detective stories of Korean War veteran Troy. The supporting cast, varying from season to season, features George Tobias, Guy Stockwell, and Linda Lawson.
Adventures in Paradise
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
Pete and Gladys is an American situation comedy television series starring Harry Morgan and Cara Williams that aired on CBS on Mondays at 8:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific time for two seasons, beginning on September 19, 1960. The last episode was broadcast on September 10, 1962.
Pete and Gladys
Mr. & Mrs. North is an American comedy/mystery television series that aired on CBS from October 3, 1952 to May 25, 1954. The series centers on Jerry North, a mystery magazine publisher who thinks he is a good amateur detective, and his wife, Pamela, as they solve crimes in New York City.
Mr. & Mrs. North
General Electric Theater is an American anthology series hosted by Ronald Reagan that was broadcast on CBS radio and television. The series was sponsored by General Electric's Department of Public Relations.
General Electric Theater
A four-time widow discusses her four marriages, in which all of her husbands became incredibly rich and died prematurely because of their drive to be rich.
What a Way to Go!
Charles Jackson, an American sea-captain and singing soldier-of-fortune, is arrested by the French Foreign Legion for running guns to the rebel forces in Morocco fighting against the rule of the French in north Africa. He is saved by Lili La Fleur, a singer/dance in a Morocco café and, through her, eventually becomes a hero to the Foreign Legion.
Women Everywhere
Struggling artist fakes his own death so his works will increase in value.
The Art of Love
A private eye is hired by an insurance company to investigate a shipping magnate suspected of deliberately sinking his own ships for the insurance money. He finds himself involved in a web of deception, double-crossing and murder.
Assignment to Kill
Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire present more golden moments from the MGM film library, this time including comedy and drama as well as classic musical numbers.
That's Entertainment, Part II
Famous actress Norma Shearer's jewels are stolen… (Star-packed promotional short film intended to raise funds for the National Variety Artists Tuberculosis Sanatorium.)
The Stolen Jools
When a treasure hunter seeks a downed airplane in the jungles of Africa, he encounters one of the passenger's young daughter, now fully grown, and with a gorilla protector.
Nabonga
Based on the novel Low Company. One of the most peculiar film noirs of the 1940s stars Barry Sullivan as a small-time hood who suffers a mental breakdown as his big plans begin to crumble. Beautiful Belita is his singer girlfriend who only fuels his paranoia.
The Gangster
Harry and Inez are a dance team at the Wonder Bar. Inez loves Harry, but he is in love with Liane, the wife of a wealthy business man. Al Wonder and the conductor/singer Tommy are in love with Inez. When Inez finds out that Harry wants to leave Paris and is going to the USA with Liane, she kills him.