Virginia O’Brien

Born in LA in 1919, Virginia O’Brien was drawn to dancing young after viewing several films starring Eleanor Powell, but she ultimately became a vocalist. She was employed for any 1940 stage creation of Meet up with the People (she got the gig as the movie director was impressed with her spot-on impersonation of Ethel Merman). Although she believed her on-stage debut was a tragedy (she experienced stage fright and sang her track with little feelings), the top of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Louis B. Mayer, noticed the overall performance and noticed potential in O’Brien. She was authorized to a seven-year agreement after only an individual screen check, starring in such films as Ziegfeld Follies, Right up until the Clouds Move By, The Harvey Ladies, Hundreds Cheer, and Du Barry Was a female alongside Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, Fred Astaire, Bert Lahr, the Marx Brothers, Donald O’Connor, and Crimson Skelton (with whom she produced a complete of seven movies with). In only a few brief years, O’Brien was among Hollywood’s top woman comedic actresses. It had been her use Garland that O’Brien is most beneficial known for, nevertheless, singing “The Crazy, Wild Western” (from your Harvey Ladies) and “Existence Upon the Wicked Stage” (from Right up until the Clouds Move By) alongside Garland. Her recognition started to wane by the finish of the 10 years, but she held employed in both nightclubs and little theater productions, in addition to showing up on such well-known TV talk displays with Ed Sullivan, Merv Griffin, and Steve Allen, in addition to an appearance in films (the 1976 Disney film Gus). Among her last looks is at the ’90s, within the Hand Springtime Follies. On January 16, 2001, O’Brien passed on in LA at age 81.