Gale Storm

Josephine Owaissa Cottle, known professionally as Gale Storm, was an American actress and singer who starred in two popular television programs of the 1950s, My Little Margie and The Gale Storm Show. Six of her songs were top ten hits. Storm's greatest success was a cover version of "I Hear You Knockin'," which hit #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1955. When Storm was 17, two of her teachers urged her to enter a contest on Gateway to Hollywood, broadcast from the CBS Radio studios in Hollywood. First prize was a one-year contract with a movie studio. She won and was immediately given the stage name Gale Storm. Her performing partner (and future husband), Lee Bonnell from South Bend, Indiana, became known as Terry Belmont. Storm had a role in the radio version of Big Town. After winning the contest in 1940, Storm made several films for the RKO Radio Pictures studio. Her first was Tom Brown's School Days, playing opposite Jimmy Lydon and Freddie Bartholomew. She worked steadily in low-budget films released during this period. In 1941, she sang in several soundies, three-minute musicals produced for "movie jukeboxes". She acted and sang in Monogram Pictures' Frankie Darro series, and played ingénue roles in other Monogram features with the East Side Kids, Edgar Kennedy, and the Three Stooges, most notably in the film Swing Parade of 1946. Monogram had always relied on established actors with reputations, but in Gale Storm, the studio finally had a star of its own. She played the lead in the studio's most elaborate productions, both musical and dramatic. She shared top billing in Monogram's Cosmo Jones, Crime Smasher, opposite Edgar Kennedy, Richard Cromwell, and Frank Graham in the role of Jones, a character derived from network radio. Storm starred in a number of films, including the romantic comedies G.I. Honeymoon and It Happened on Fifth Avenue, the Western Stampede, and the 1950 film-noir dramas The Underworld Story and Between Midnight and Dawn. U.S. audiences warmed to Storm and her fan mail increased. She performed in more than three dozen motion pictures for Monogram, experience which made possible her success in other media. In the 1950s, she made singing appearances on such television variety programs as The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom. In 1950, Storm made her television debut in Hollywood Premiere Theatre on ABC. From 1952 to 1955, she starred in My Little Margie, with former silent film actor Charles Farrell as her father. The series began as a summer replacement for I Love Lucy on CBS, but ran for 126 episodes on NBC and then CBS. The series was broadcast on CBS Radio from December 1952 to August 1955 with the same actors. Her popularity was capitalized on when she served as hostess of the NBC Comedy Hour in the winter of 1956. That year, she starred in another situation comedy, The Gale Storm Show (Oh! Susanna), featuring another silent movie star, ZaSu Pitts. The show ran for 143 episodes on CBS and ABC between 1956 and 1960. Storm appeared regularly on other television programs in the 1950s and 1960s. She was both a panelist and a "mystery guest" on CBS's What's My Line?

Known For: Acting

Born: Bloomington, Texas, USA, 1922-04-05

Died: 2009-06-27

No.	Year	Title	Role	Vote Average
1	1940	Tom Brown's School Days	Effie	72
2	1940	One Crowded Night	Annie Mathews	40
3	1941	I Know Somebody Who Loves You		0
4	1941	City of Missing Girls	Mary Phillips	40
5	1941	Penthouse Serenade		0
6	1941	Saddlemates	Susan Langley	0
7	1941	Let's Get Away from It All		0
8	1941	Gambling Daughters	Lillian Harding	50
9	1941	Let's Go Collegiate	Midge Lawrence	50
10	1941	Jesse James at Bay	Jane Fillmore, 'St. Louis Journal' Reporter	42
11	1941	Uncle Joe	Clare Day	60
12	1941	Red River Valley	Kay Sutherland	77
13	1941	The Merry-Go-Roundup		0
14	1942	Freckles Comes Home	Jane Potter	50
15	1942	Man from Cheyenne	Judy Evans	75
16	1942	He Plays Gin Rummy	Singer	0
17	1942	Lure of the Islands	Maui	50
18	1942	Smart Alecks	Ruth Stevens	54
19	1942	Foreign Agent	Mitzi Mayo	40
20	1942	Rhythm Parade	Sally Benson	0
21	1943	Cosmo Jones, Crime Smasher	Susan Fleming	40
22	1943	Revenge of the Zombies	Jennifer Rand	52
23	1943	Nearly Eighteen	Jane Stanton	50
24	1943	Campus Rhythm	Joan Abbott, aka Susie Smith	45
25	1943	Where Are Your Children?	Judy Wilson	40
26	1943	Glamour Girl		0
27	1943	I'm a Shy Guy		0
28	1945	Forever Yours	Joan Randall	0
29	1945	G.I. Honeymoon	Ann Gordon	0
30	1945	Sunbonnet Sue	Sue Casey	50
31	1946	Swing Parade of 1946	Carol Lawrence	42
32	1947	It Happened on Fifth Avenue	Trudy O'Connor	70
33	1948	The Dude Goes West	Liza Crockett	58
34	1948	Walk a Crooked Mile	Voice on Tape Recorder	59
35	1949	Stampede	Connie Dawson	55
36	1949	Abandoned	Paula Considine	62
37	1950	The Kid from Texas	Irene Kain	53
38	1950	Curtain Call at Cactus Creek	Julie Martin	63
39	1950	The Underworld Story	Catherine Harris	61
40	1950	Between Midnight and Dawn	Katharine 'Kate' Mallory	58
41	1951	Al Jennings of Oklahoma	Margo St. Claire	50
42	1951	The Texas Rangers	Helen Fenton	57
43	1951	Rim of the Wheel	Virginia Sutton	0
44	1952	Woman of the North Country	Cathy Nordlund	45
45	1954	How to Go Places	Herself	0
46	1994	Abbott and Costello Meet Jerry Seinfeld	Girl in TV Skit About Door Frame (uncredited)	70

No.	Year	Title	Role	Vote Average
1	1948	The Ed Sullivan Show	Self	68
2	1950	Robert Montgomery Presents		56
3	1950	What's My Line?	Self - Panelist	69
4	1950	What's My Line?	Self - Mystery Guest	69
5	1950	The Bob Hope Show	Self	70
6	1950	The Colgate Comedy Hour	Self	68
7	1952	My Little Margie	Margie Albright	30
8	1952	This Is Your Life	Self	64
9	1952	The Ford Television Theatre	Hope Foster	73
10	1954	The Wonderful World of Disney	Self	78
11	1955	Celebrity Playhouse		0
12	1956	The NBC Comedy Hour		0
13	1956	The Gale Storm Show	Susanna Pomeroy	55
14	1956	The Dinah Shore Chevy Show	Self	60
15	1961	The Mike Douglas Show	Self	54
16	1963	Burke's Law	Honey Feather Leeps	60
17	1963	Burke's Law	Dr. Nonnie Harper	60
18	1977	The Love Boat	Gale Storm	63
19	1977	The Love Boat	Rose Kennycott	63
20	1984	Murder, She Wrote	Maisie Mayberry	75

Gale Storm

Film

Television