Biography
An accomplished performer with a polished vocal delivery, polished stage presence, and striking screen charisma, Gloria DeHaven starred in numerous Hollywood musicals throughout the 1940s and 1950s. Born to the well-known theatrical duo the Carter DeHavens, she began working in entertainment at an early age. During the opening years of the 1940s she performed as a vocalist alongside prominent orchestras directed by figures such as Jan Savitt and appeared as an uncredited extra in Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times and The Great Dictator. Following several minor screen roles she joined the MGM roster, where her initial impact came with Best Foot Forward in 1943; that same year she also participated in the star-studded revue Thousands Cheer. For the balance of the decade she took parts in musical features including Broadway Rhythm, Two Girls and a Sailor, Step Lively, Summer Holiday, and Yes Sir That’s My Baby (1949), while also essaying a number of straight dramatic assignments. In 1950 she portrayed her own mother and performed the song “Who’s Sorry Now” within the biographical drama devoted to songwriters Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby, after which she was seen in Summer Stock, I’ll Get By, Two Tickets to Broadway, Down Among the Sheltering Palms, So This Is Paris, and The Girl Rush (1955).
When rock and roll reshaped the tone of screen musicals in the latter half of the 1950s, DeHaven shifted her focus toward television and live theater. In 1955 she shared the Broadway stage with Ricardo Montalban in Seventh Heaven, a stage musical adaptation of the 1927 silent film that had starred Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell. During the 1970s she continued to accept dramatic roles in both motion pictures and American television series. In 1989 she resumed performing as a nightclub vocalist, opening at New York’s Rainbow & Stars, where her sets of intimate saloon numbers were accompanied by reminiscences about her vaudeville-trained parents who had set her on her professional path decades earlier. References to her several marriages, one of them to fellow golden-era musical star John Payne, apparently formed no part of those evenings.
When rock and roll reshaped the tone of screen musicals in the latter half of the 1950s, DeHaven shifted her focus toward television and live theater. In 1955 she shared the Broadway stage with Ricardo Montalban in Seventh Heaven, a stage musical adaptation of the 1927 silent film that had starred Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell. During the 1970s she continued to accept dramatic roles in both motion pictures and American television series. In 1989 she resumed performing as a nightclub vocalist, opening at New York’s Rainbow & Stars, where her sets of intimate saloon numbers were accompanied by reminiscences about her vaudeville-trained parents who had set her on her professional path decades earlier. References to her several marriages, one of them to fellow golden-era musical star John Payne, apparently formed no part of those evenings.
Albums
Singles