Gale Storm dies at 87; star of 1950s sitcoms

Gale Storm also starred in the hit TV show “The Gale Storm Show: Oh! Susanna,” which ran from 1956 to 1960. She also had a successful career in films and on radio.
The actress came to Hollywood as a finalist in a national talent contest, then appeared in numerous movies before starring on TV in the popular 'My Little Margie' and 'The Gale Storm Show.'
By Dennis McLellan
June 29, 2009
Gale Storm, who shot to the top on television as the vivacious star of two popular 1950s situation comedies, "My Little Margie" and "The Gale Storm Show: Oh! Susanna," has died. She was 87.

Storm, who also had a successful recording career during her TV heyday, died Saturday of natural causes at a convalescent hospital in the Northern California community of Danville, according to her son Peter Bonnell.


A summer replacement for "I Love Lucy," "My Little Margie" ran from 1952 to 1955, with Storm starring as the plucky young Margie Albright and Charles Farrell as her widower father, Vern. Although critics generally panned "My Little Margie" as a lightweight farce, the public fell in love with the mischievous Margie. A 1953 poll of the most popular TV stars listed Storm at No. 2, behind TV comedy queen Lucille Ball.

After "My Little Margie" ended, Storm starred in "The Gale Storm Show: Oh! Susanna," in which she played social director Susanna Pomeroy aboard the luxury liner the SS Ocean Queen. The situation comedy, featuring Zasu Pitts as the ship's flighty beautician Elvira "Nugey" Nugent and Roy Roberts as Capt. Huxley, ran from 1956 to 1960.

Storm was a pert and pretty 17-year-old Houston, Texas, high school senior named Josephine Cottle when she arrived in Hollywood in late 1939 as a finalist in the nationwide "Gateway to Hollywood" talent contest.

Born on April 5, 1922, in Bloomington, Texas, the auburn-haired Storm had played the leads in numerous plays and musicals in school, but two of her teachers had to push her to enter the "Gateway" competition.

The winning actor and actress were promised contracts with RKO Studios and guaranteed a role in a major motion picture. And, as Hollywood tradition dictated, they would be given new, marquee-suitable names.

During the elimination period in Hollywood, the male and female finalists acted in scenes broadcast live Sundays over CBS Radio, with the home audience spurred to tune in the following week to find out:

"Who will be Terry Belmont?"

"Who will be Gale Storm?"

If young Josephine Cottle was Cinderella, her Prince Charming was her male co-winner, the newly christened Terry Belmont: Lee Bonnell, a handsome Indiana University drama student from South Bend, Ind.

In 1941, Storm married Bonnell, who became an insurance executive after a short-lived film career. Their marriage lasted until Bonnell's death in 1986 and produced three sons and a daughter.

Beginning with "Tom Brown's School Days" in 1940, Storm appeared in 36 movies during the next dozen years. Dropped by RKO after six months and two pictures, she appeared in a variety of B-movies at Republic, Monogram, Allied Artists and Universal.

Among her film credits, which included musical comedies, film noir dramas and westerns (three with Roy Rogers), are starring roles in films such as "Freckles Comes Home," "Where Are Your Children?," "Campus Rhythm," "G.I. Honeymoon," "Sunbonnet Sue," "Swing Parade of 1946," and "It Happened on 5th Avenue."

But by the early '50s, her movie career was in a slump and she was resigned to devoting herself to her family full time when she received a call from producer Hal Roach Jr., who wanted her for the lead in a proposed TV series, "My Little Margie."

Her success with "My Little Margie" -- and a radio version with original episodes -- led to her being approached to do a nightclub act in Las Vegas during the summers of 1953 and 1954. After hearing Storm sing on one live TV show, Dot Records signed her to a contract.

Her first record, the rhythm and blues song "I Hear You Knocking," soared to No. 2 on the Billboard chart in 1955. Other Top 20 hits followed, including "Teenage Prayer," "Memories Are Made of This," "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?," "Ivory Tower" and "Dark Moon."

Storm, who received three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame recognizing her work in TV, radio and recordings, saw her career decline dramatically after her second series ended in 1960.

"My whole life has been a pattern of success," Storm told The Times in 1981. "So many marvelous things that I would never even have dreamt of wishing for [have] happened to me."

But there also was an unexpected downside.

In 1980, she returned to the limelight as the commercial spokeswoman for Raleigh Hills Hospital, the now-defunct alcohol treatment chain where she had been treated for a serious bout with alcoholism.

Alcoholism, she told The Times in 1988, "is a disease of denial. I had been the kind of alcoholic -- as so many women are -- that I was so careful. You talk about a secret drinker."

She had been in and out of a number of hospitals before she heard of Raleigh Hills.

In 1979, she underwent detoxification at Raleigh Hills Hospital in Oxnard, followed by its aversion therapy and counseling program. Afterward, she said, she never craved alcohol again.

Through it all, she said, her husband offered his support. "It was absolutely a great marriage," she said.

In 1988, two years after Bonnell's death, Storm married retired ABC executive Paul Masterson, a widower whom she met through a mutual friend. Masterson died in 1996.

In addition to her son Peter, she is survived by sons Phillip and Paul and daughter Susanna Harrigan. She is also survived by eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Services are pending.

Los Angeles Times

dennis.mclellan@latimes.com

Billy Mays - Did Head Injury Turn Deadly

How can a person be fine one minute and dead the next?

It happened to Natasha Richardson in March. After hitting her head on a ski slope in Canada, the Tony Award-winning actress was seemingly fine, laughing about being clumsy before heading back to her hotel room.

But a short-time later, Richardson complained of severe head pain and from there her condition deteriorated, she went into a coma shortly after arriving at a Canadian hospital and was taken off life support two days later.

Now, some are wondering if that same fate befell TV pitchman Billy Mays, who died Sunday after suffering a head injury Saturday after the airplane he was on had a rough landing at Tampa Bay's airport.

It's "something we call the ‘talk and die’ syndrome,” Dr. Steven Flanagan, director of Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine at New York University’s Langone Medical Center, told FOXNews.com at the time of Richardson's death.

“What this implies is that someone hits their head and they are seemingly OK initially," he said. "But then they get a rapid collection of blood — usually called epidural hemorrhage — and that means bleeding between the skull and the brain.”

Fifty-year-old Mays, who joked with a reporter about his head injury after the plane's landing Saturday, apparently told his wife later that night he was not feeling well when he went to bed. He was found dead the next morning.

Flanagan said a person doesn't always show outward signs of trauma when suffering a head injury.

“When someone has bleeding between the skull and the brain, it basically presses on the brain, and if it presses enough… it can cause substantial damage and even death,” Flanagan said. “And presumably that’s what probably happened to her — but again, we’re speculating.”

Symptoms of an epidural hemorrhage include:

— Headache;

— Loss of consciousness;

— Weakness on one side of the body;

— A change in mental status

If the condition is not treated immediately, the person will fall into a coma and “it’s downhill from there,” Flanagan said.

“So you need to get the injury treated immediately,” he said. “First we would do an emergency CAT scan to find out exactly where the hemorrhage is, and then the patient would need immediate surgery.”

While this demonstrates to use caution when suffering a painful head injury, Flanagan said people should not panic over every little bump and bruise.

“If you bumped your head getting out of the car, this wouldn’t happen to you,” he said. “It would have to be a significant injury.”

Monday, June 29, 2009
By Karlie Pouliot

Janet Jackson bet awards 2009

Michael Jackson: A Weekend of Rememberances, Reporting, Tributes, Condolences and Controversy

So, where to begin? How about with one of the more interesting flashbacks I've seen from the critical class, this one authored by Robert Hilburn, the longtime former Los Angeles Times music scribe. Uncle Bob had plenty of dealings with Jackson over the years, but their final conversation still haunts Hilburn. Worth a read. ... An attorney for Jackson's doctor, Conrad Murray, says the entertainer had a faint pulse when Murray found him in bed, where he wasn't breathing. The lawyer also denied reports suggesting Murray gave Jackson drugs that contributed to his death, saying that the doctor never prescribed or gave Jackson Demerol or OxyContin. ... Joe Jackson says stress over the comeback concerts probably didn't kill his son. ...

But the Jackson family patriarch "has a lot of concerns" regarding his son's death. ... President Obama has sent a condolence letter to Jackson's family. ... Performers have been dedicating shows and songs to Jackson on stages all over the world, with the Queen of Soul even saying an onstage prayer for the King of Pop. Ground zero for the tributes: Last night's BET Awards, where everybody from show openers New Edition and host Jamie Foxx to Beyonce, Ciara, Lebron James and Ne-Yo saluted Jackson. Michael's sister, Janet, also showed up to deliver a speech on behalf of her family. ... Will Janet and the Jackson brothers embark on a tribute tour? ... AEG Live, which was promoting Jackson's concerts in London, "is planning what could be one of the biggest ticket-refund programs in history," per the Wall Street Journal. ... The first high-profile tribute song crash-landed on Friday. Spearheaded by the Game, the track, "Better on the Other side," features the likes of Chris Brown, Diddy, Usher and Boyz II Men. ... Rapper 50 Cent released a couple of Jacko tributes on Friday, as well. Many, many more to come, no doubt. ... Jackson's recordings are blowing up on the charts. In the U.K., his greatest-hits comp, "Number Ones," is, in fact, No. 1, and he has another four albums in the Top 20. ... Nielsen Soundscan hasn't yet announced last week's chart results, but Jackson is poised to make chart history -- again. ...

Here's a fascinating nugget from a Reuters report: Amazon.com sold out of Jackson CDs and DVDs "in the first few minutes following reports of Jackson's death. Amazon sold more Jackson merchandise in the past 24 hours than in the prior 11 years, a spokesman said." It's almost like that famous Rolling Stone headline said about Jim Morrison: "He's hot, he's sexy, and he's dead." Like I said: Almost. ... The Wrap reports: "Michael Jackson's last rehearsal at the Staples Center on Wednesday, the eve of his death, was recorded in multi-camera, high-definition video and multi-track audio, and could be released as the performer's last album, according to several people close to the now-defunct concert tour." ... Jackson left behind a mountain of debt, as well as some new songs. ... Might Michael be buried at Neverland Ranch? ... At Glastonbury, where everybody from the Black Eyed Peas and Dizzee Rascal to the Streets and Yeah Yeah Yeahs acknowledged Jackson. Still, the MJ tributes were mixed at the festival. ... Not so at the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center in the Philippines, where inmates performed a "Thriller" tribute that had already made them internet sensations. ... L.A. Times media critic Tim Rutten writes about the media's "irrational excess." ... Richard Prince does a roundup of the coverage debate, asking: "How Much is Enough, and Which Michael to Highlight?"

By J. Freedom du Lac, Washington Post