Alice Faye, actress; born May 5, 1912, died May 9, 1998
legendary film actress Alice Faye died at the Eisenhower Medical Centre, Palm Springs, California, on Saturday. She had been suffering from stomach cancer for three months. Her daughters, Phyllis and Alice, were at her bedside. The actress had undergone exploratory surgery but had refused chemotherapy.
Alice was not the typical Hollywood showbusiness blonde. More than most of her contemporaries she was the girl next door who could sing, dance, and had the happy knack of leaving audiences in a happy frame of mind. During the Second World War she was almost always portrayed as ''the girl he left behind''.
She was the reason the GIs and allies were fighting the good, just war and she never let any of her soldier boys down. Countless musicals were urgently shipped to the Pacific and European war zones to boost the morale of the troops. Not a pin-up girl in the Betty Grable mould, Alice was ''the girl next door'', sitting on the windowsill waiting for her GI Joe to come home. Her song, You'll Never Know, from the 1943 film Hello Frisco, Hello won an Academy award.
Alice's career spanned 70 years from her first appearance in vaudeville as a 13-year-old when she auditioned unsuccessfully for The George White Scandals, through countless Hollywood musicals, to radio and television. Her appeal was worldwide.
She was born Alice Jeane Leppert in the notorious Hell's Kitchen area of New York. Her father was a policeman of German and French parentage; her mother (nee Moffit) claimed Scottish/Irish ancestry. Alice's fear of poverty stemmed from her humble upbringing and stayed with her all her life. She rose from chorus girl to leading lady on Broadway and made countless broadcasts with Rudi Vallee and his orchestra. When Vallee went to Hollywood for the film version of Scandals in 1934 Alice travelled with him in the hope of landing a part in the project. She got lucky when actress Lilian Harvey left the film because of the size of her part. Alice took over and became a star.
Her image was altered to present her as an all-singing, all-dancing Jean Harlow-type, but when Darryl F Zanuck took over the studio a year later he gave her a softer look and after several films supporting wonder child Shirley Temple she was given the full star treatment, appearing in a series of nostalgic musicals with leading men Tyrone Power and Don Ameche, including In Old Chicago and Irving Berlin's Alexander's Ragtime Band.
Alice met and married singer Tony Martin in 1936 but they divorced in 1939. She eventually met and married band leader/comedian Phil Harris in 1941. The marriage lasted until Phil's death in 1995. They had two daughters, Alice and Phyllis.
Her wartime popularity came to an end in 1945 when she walked out on the studio after completing her first major drama, Fallen Angel. She accused director Otto Preminger of cutting the film in favour of newcomer Linda Darnell. Studio boss Zanuck vowed that she would never work in films again. Then the studio cast her in a 1962 remake of State Fair, co-starring opposite Pat Boone, Tom Ewell, and Bobby Darin. It was not a very successful comeback and Alice returned to radio and television where she and husband Phil had found a profitable niche in the early fifties.
A couple of later attempts at regaining her status as a screen star failed and Alice went on the road with a revival of the musical Good News, with former co-stars John Payne and Don Ameche. More recently she became spokeswoman for a major pharmaceutical company and also wrote a book, Growing Older, Looking Younger, aimed at the senior citizens market.
Alice Faye is survived by her two daughters, four grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.
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