Gale Storm

Gale Storm first gained widespread recognition through her starring role in the early-1950s sitcom My Little Margie, yet her path to that success began under far less fortunate circumstances in Texas. Hardship marked her childhood until a sequence of fortunate events suddenly opened doors, first to a film contract, then to marriage, and ultimately to a recording career.

Born Josephine Owaissa Cottle in Bloomington, Texas, in 1922, she lost her father before reaching her first birthday, leaving her mother to raise five children alone. The family home had no indoor plumbing, so they relied on an outhouse and washed laundry with soap they made themselves. Money remained scarce when Storm reached junior high in Houston, ruling out activities such as the Girl Scouts; instead she joined the school’s free drama club.

Two high-school teachers urged her to enter the Gateway to Hollywood talent competition of the late 1930s. The nationwide contest awarded movie contracts to its two victors—one of them Storm, the other a young man who later became her husband. The victory gave her an entrée at both RKO and Universal, where she appeared in Between Midnight and Dawn, Woman of the North Country, It Happened on Fifth Avenue, and Foreign Agent, among other pictures.

Her winning performance on the Comedy Hour Show reached a young viewer in Gallatin, Tennessee, whose father, Randy Wood, overheard the singing from another room. When the child identified the performer as “My Little Margie,” Wood immediately telephoned Dot Records to offer Storm a contract.

Under that label she scored a Top-Five hit in 1955 with her version of Smiley Lewis’s “I Hear You Knocking.” Additional Dot singles from the same year were “Memories Are Made of This” and “Teen Age Prayer”; 1956 brought “Ivory Tower” and “Why Do Fools Fall in Love?”; and “Dark Moon” followed in 1957. She also recorded “My Happiness” and “Now Is the Hour” and released several albums.

Storm headlined her own series, The Gale Storm Show, during the latter half of the decade. In later years she took part in regional theater productions near her San Fernando Valley residence, including a 1987 staging of Breaking Up the Act alongside Sheree North and Betty Garrett. Her autobiography, I Ain’t Down Yet: The Autobiography of My Little Margie, appeared in 1981.