Alice Faye
Alice Faye (May 5, 1915 – May 9, 1998) was an American actress and singer, called by The New York Times "one of the few movie stars to walk away from stardom at the peak of her career." She is remembered first for her stardom at 20th Century Fox and, later, as the radio comedy partner of her husband, bandleader and comedian Phil Harris. She is also often associated with the Academy Award–winning standard "You'll Never Know", which she introduced in the 1943 musical film Hello, Frisco, Hello.
Born Alice Jeanne Leppert in New York City, she was the daughter of a New York police officer of German descent and his Irish-American wife, Charles and Alice Moffit Leppert. Faye's entertainment career began in vaudeville as a chorus girl (she failed an audition for the Ziegfeld Follies when it was revealed she was too young), before she moved to Broadway and a featured role in the 1931 edition of George White's Scandals. By this time, she had adopted her stage name and first reached a radio audience on Rudy Vallée's The Fleischmann Hour (1932–1934), where she may have met her future husband and comedy partner, Phil Harris.
Meanwhile, she gained her first major film break in 1934, when Lilian Harvey abandoned the lead role in a film version of George White's 1935 Scandals, in which Vallee was also to appear. Hired first to perform a musical number with Vallee, Faye ended up as the female lead. She became a hit with film audiences of the 1930s, particularly when Fox production head Darryl F. Zanuck made her his protégé. He softened Faye from a wisecracking show girl to a youthful, yet somewhat motherly figure such as she played in a few Shirley Temple films.
Faye also received a physical makeover, from being something of a singing version of Jean Harlow to sporting a softer look with a more natural tone to her blonde hair and more mature makeup, including her notorious "pencil" eyebrows. Considered less than serious as an actress and more than serious as a singer, Faye nailed what many critics consider her best acting performance in 1937's In Old Chicago. The film was also extremely memorable for its twenty-minute ending, a recreation of the Great Chicago Fire, a scene so dangerous that women, except for the main stars, were banned from the set. Her co-stars in that film were Tyrone Power and Don Ameche, two of Faye's most frequent co-stars, as it was customary for studios to pair its contract players together in more than one film.
Faye, Power, and Ameche were reunited for 1938's Alexander's Ragtime Band. Although the film was mainly designed to showcase over twenty Irving Berlin songs, Faye again received strong reviews and the film was considered a landmark from changing the status of musicals as light, frivolous fare to a respectable film genre. One of the most expensive films for its time, it also became one of the most successful musicals of the 1930s.
By 1939, Faye was named one of the top ten box office draws in Hollywood. That year she made Rose of Washington Square with Tyrone Power. Although a big hit, the film was supposedly based on the real life of commediene Fanny Brice and Brice sued Fox for stealing her story.
Because of her bankable status, Fox occasionally placed Faye in films that were put together more for the sake of making money than showcasing Faye's talents. Films like Tail Spin and Barricade (both 1939) were more dramatic in nature than regular Faye films and often did not contain any songs for Faye to sing. But due to her immense popularity, none of the films that she made in the 1930s and 1940s lost money.
In 1940, Faye played one of her most memorable roles, the title role in the musical biopic Lillian Russell. Faye always named this film as one of her personal favorites, but it was also her most challenging role. The tight corsets Faye wore for this picture caused Faye to collapse on the set several times and it shrunk her waist six inches. After turning down the lead role Down Argentine Way, for unclear reasons, Faye was placed alongside the studio's newest musical star, Betty Grable, in the film Tin Pan Alley.
During the making of the picture, a large rumor arose that there was a rivalry between Faye and Grable. Grable's popularity soon became even more immense than Faye's. Between 1940 and 1945, Grable made more films than Faye and her films consistenly made more money than Faye's. During these years, Grable was named the #1 box office star in the world. However, both actresses were very close friends and they never displayed rivalry between each other, perhaps because the two had vastly different personas in their musicals.
In 1941, Fox began to place Faye in musicals photographed in Technicolor, a trademark for the studio in the 1940s. She frequently played a performer, often one moving up in society, allowing for situations that ranged from the poignant to the comic. Films such as Weekend in Havana (1941) and That Night in Rio (1941), as a Brazilian aristocrat, made good use of Faye's husky singing voice, solid comic timing, and flair for carrying off the era's starry-eyed romantic storylines. 1943's The Gang's All Here is possibly the epitome of these films, with lavish production values and a range of supporting players (including the memorable Carmen Miranda in the indescribable "Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat" number) that camouflage the film's trivial plot and leisurely pacing.
In 1943, after taking a year off to have her first daughter, Faye starred in the Technicolor musical Hello, Frisco, Hello. Released at the height of World War II, the film became one of Faye's personal favorites and one of her highest-grossing pictures for Fox. It was in this film that Faye sang "You'll Never Know." The song won the Academy Award for Best Song for 1943 and the sheet music for the song sold over a million copies. However, since there was a clause in her contract (as was the case with most other Fox stars) stating that she could not officially record any of her movie songs, other singers like Dick Haymes (whose version hit #1 for four weeks), Frank Sinatra, and Rosemary Clooney have been more associated with the song than Faye. However, it is still often considered Faye's signature song. That year, Faye was once again named one of the top box office draws in the world.
As Faye's star continued to ascend during the war years, family life became more important to her, especially with the arrival of a second daughter, Phyllis. After her birth, Faye signed a new contract with Fox to make only one picture a year, with the option of a second one, in order to give Faye a chance to spend more time with her family. But Faye also used this as an opportunity to campaign for serious roles, turning down numerous scripts in the process.
Faye finally accepted the lead role in Fallen Angel, whose title became only too telling, as circumstances turned out. Designed ostensibly as Faye's vehicle, the film all but became her celluloid epitaph when Zanuck, trying to build his new protege Linda Darnell, ordered many Faye scenes cut and Darnell emphasized. When Faye saw a screening of the final product, she drove away from the Fox studio refusing to return, feeling she had been undercut deliberately by Zanuck.
According to her obituary in the New York Times, "Ms. Faye handed the keys to her dressing room to the studio gate guard and drove off the lot." In 1987 she told an interviewer, "When I stopped making pictures, it didn't bother me because there were so many things I hadn't done. I had never learned to run a house. I didn't know how to cook. I didn't know how to shop. So all these things filled all those gaps."
Zanuck hit back, it is said, by having Faye blackballed for breach of contract, effectively ending her film career. Released in 1945, Fallen Angel was Faye's last film as a major Hollywood star. Ironically, for several years after, Zanuck tried to bring Faye back onto the screen with major roles in films such as The Dolly Sisters, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Razor's Edge, and Wabash Avenue, which would give her the chance to work opposite her husband, Phil Harris.
Seventeen years after the Fallen Angel debacle, Faye went before the cameras again, in 1962's State Fair. While Faye received good reviews, the film was not a great success, and she made only infrequent cameo appearances in films thereafter.
Faye's first marriage, to Tony Martin in 1937, ended in divorce in 1940. A year later, however, she married Phil Harris. This marriage became a plotline on an episode of the hit radio show hosted by Harris's then-employer, Jack Benny, which struck platinum in both Faye's personal and her professional life.
The couple had two daughters, Alice (b. 1942) and Phyllis (b. 1944), along with Harris's adopted son from his first marriage, Phil Harris, Jr. (b. 1935), and they began working in radio together as Faye's film career declined. First, they teamed to host a variety show on NBC, The Fitch Bandwagon, in 1946. Originally conceived as a music showcase, the Harrises' gently tart comedy sketches made them the show's breakout stars. By 1948, Fitch bowed away as sponsor in favour of Rexall, the pharmaceutical giant, and the show, now a strictly situation comedy with a music interlude each from husband and wife, was renamed The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show.
Harris's comic talent was already familiar through his tenure on The Jack Benny Show, where he played Benny's wisecracking, jive-talking hipster bandleader. With their own show revamped to a sitcom, bandleader Harris and singer-actress Faye played themselves, raising two precocious children in and out of slightly zany situations, mostly involving Harris's band guitarist Frank Remley (Elliott Lewis), obnoxious delivery boy Julius Abruzzio (Walter Tetley, familiar as nephew Leroy on The Great Gildersleeve), Robert North as Faye's fictitious deadbeat brother, Willie, and sponsor's representative Mr. Scott (Gale Gordon), and usually involving bumbling, malapropping Harris needing rescue from acidly loving Faye.
The Harrises' two daughters were played on radio by Jeanine Roos and Anne Whitfield; written mostly by Ray Singer and Dick Chevillat, the show stayed on NBC radio fixture until 1954.
Faye singing ballads and swing numbers in her honey contralto voice was a regular highlight of the show, as was a knack for tart one-liners equal to her husband's. The show's running gags also included references to Alice's wealth from her film career ("I'm only trying to protect the wife of the money I love" was a typical Harris drollery) and occasional barbs by Faye aimed at her rift with Zanuck, usually referencing Fallen Angel in one or another way.
Faye and Harris continued various projects, individually and together, for the rest of their lives. Faye made a return to Broadway after forty-three years in a revival of Good News, with her old Fox partner John Payne (who was replaced by Gene Nelson). In later years, Faye became a spokeswoman for Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, promoting the virtues of an active senior lifestyle. The Faye-Harris marriage endured until Harris's death in 1995; before that, the couple donated a large volume of their entertainment memorabilia to Harris's hometown Linton, Indiana.
Three years after her husband's death, Alice Faye died in Rancho Mirage, California from stomach cancer, four days after her 83rd birthday. She was cremated and her ashes rest beside those of Phil Harris at the mausoleum of the Forest Lawn Cemetery (Cathedral City) near Palm Springs, California. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in recognition of her contribution to Motion Pictures at 6922 Hollywood Boulevard. The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show remains a favourite of old-time radio collectors.
Her voice, the New York Times wrote in her obituary, was "inviting." Irving Berlin was once quoted as saying that he would choose Faye over any other singer to introduce his songs, and George Gershwin and Cole Porter called her the "best female singer in Hollywood in 1937."[4] During her years as a musical superstar, Alice Faye managed to introduce twenty-three songs to the hit parade, more than any other female Hollywood movie star. During her peak years, she was often considered the female equivalent to Bing Crosby.
Although Faye has always had many fans around the globe, she was never more popular anywhere else than she was in England. In The Alice Faye Movie Book, a particular article is devoted to Faye's popularity there. The author of the article, Arthur Nicholson, mentions that Faye was enormously popular there even in her Harlow days. As opposed to other films shown in England, which were usually shown for three days a week, all of Faye's films were given the rare privilege of being played for an entire week. The article goes on to mention that, even after Faye retired in 1945, her old films still made as much money (in some cases, even more) as current releases. When Faye returned to the screen for State Fair in 1962, the film broke expected records in England. In 1966, the BBC aired Alexander's Ragtime Band on television and soon other Faye films followed. As of the writing of the article, the BBC stated that there were more requests for Faye's pictures than any other star's.
Soooooo, here's a few selections....some studio, some from film and from radio.....enjoy!
'Cause My Baby Says It's So-Alice Faye With Hal Kemp And His Orchestra
According to the Moonlight (radio)
According to the Moonlight-Afraid To Dream (radio)-With Hal Kemp
Blossoms on Broadway (radio)-With Hal Kemp
Chica Chica Boom Chic-w/ Don Ameche (deleted scene from That Night in Rio....movie version later sung by Carmen Miranda and Don Ameche)
Cross Patch (radio)-With Hal Kemp
I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm-w/ Dick Powell (from "On the Avenue" 1937)
Dinah (radio)-With The Mills Bros.
Dont Play With Fire (radio)-With Hal Kemp
Gather Lip Rouge While You May (radio)-
Get Out And Get Under-(from 'Tin Pan Alley')
Good Night-w/ Don Ameche
Goodnight, my love-w/ Cy Feuer Orch.
Happy As The Day Is Long ((radio)-
Hats Off; Mimi; The Scat Song-
Have You Got Any Castles.Baby-With Hal Kemp
Hello Frisco, Hello-(from the movie)
Here's the key to my heart-w/ Freddy Martin and His Orchestra
Heres The Key To My Heart -(from a film w/ Rudy Vallee and his Connecticut Yankees)
Honeymoon Hotel-
I Could Use a Dream-w/ Tony Martin
I Wanna be in Winchell's Column (radio)-With Hal Kemp and Skinnay Ennis
I'll see you in my dreams-
I'm Shooting High-
I've got my love to keep me warm-w/ Cy Feuer Orch.
I've Got The World On A String-
It's a Natural Thing to Do-With Hal Kemp
The Moon Got In My Eye-(radio)-With Hal Kemp
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