Day Twenty of our Holiday ramble brings us to a meeting between Popeye the Sailor Man and Dorothy Lamour, just before a holiday parade was to commence outside Paramount Studios gates. Presumably, as the small fry enjoyed seeing those distorted forearms that one could develop from the ingestion of too much spinach, the adult males in the crowd could enjoy an eyeful of Miss Lamour wearing what appears to be some carefully arranged napkins. This face in the crowd found Dorothy a lovely sight and enjoyed the sound of her warmly honeyed voice in those Hope and Crosby "Road to..." movies between 1940 and 1952--even if she did play the straight woman to the pair. Particular favorites from that series might be Road to Morocco (1942), since it was one of the threesome's funniest, and Road to Utopia (1946) since Dorothy never looked more fetching than she did in the Gibson Girl era clothes in that Gold Rush tale.

The Louisiana-born girl, a former Miss New Orleans 1931, came to prominence on the radio as a singer on a radio program with the memorable name of "The Yeast Foamers", presumably because it was sponsored by Fleischmann's Yeast. Lamour, who married the band leader on that show, Herbie Kay, heard the siren song of a New York cabaret career, appearing there with Rudy Vallee and eventually making a splash at El Morocco, where Louis B. Mayer's eagle eye fell upon her, and arranged a screen test, which eventually landed her at Paramount in 1935. Darkly exotic among the many bland blonde women who populate Hollywood in every decade, Dorothy or Dottie, as she insisted others call her, broke through in a movie called The Jungle Princess (1936) in which she played "Ulah", a distaff Tarzan who filled out a sarong nicely while Ray Milland and Ray Mala stood around in proper awe. This set Lamour on the path to more Gauguin-like fantasies in film, culminating in John Ford's The Hurricane (1937), a film that centers on the disastrous event of the title, but features a few truly ravishing shots of a natural looking beauty with little apparent artifice whenever Ford pauses to tenderly focus on her face.


This viewer is also partial to her appearances as a Latina temptress distracting Fred MacMurray from Carole Lombard in Swing High, Swing Low and in The Last Train from Madrid (1937) with Lew Ayres. Other, non-South Seas excursions that are remembered fondly were Spawn of the North (1938), with Dottie catching the eye of Alaskan fishermen Henry Fonda and George Raft and Chad Hanna (1940) with Lamour as Fonda's vixenish Lilith in a circus story set in the "wilds" of upstate New York in the 19th century. A film that is probably my true Lamour favorite and a recent re-discovery for me was Johnny Apollo (1940). In this movie Lamour's character, "Lucky Dubarry", falls hard for Tyrone Power, despite her entanglement with Lloyd Nolan. If you watch this one on the recently released dvd, look for one of the best, and quietest scenes in this enjoyable movie as Ty and Dorothy watch a bird while sitting on some steps. It doesn't sound like much on paper, but the pair of them, (under Henry Hathaway's careful direction), made that a memorable human moment in what is a rattling good gangster picture.

Another Lamour vehicle that deserves to be remembered is the obscure Wild Harvest (1947). The movie, centering on itinerant combine crews who move with the harvest featured three very likable actors toiling away: Alan Ladd, Lloyd Nolan and Robert Preston, along with Dorothy. For those of us who grew up in farm country, the life depicted quite vividly in this engaging film evokes many memories. Btw, according to Ms. Lamour's autobiography, My Side of the Road (1980), Dorothy showed exceptionally good taste in men when she and Preston fell deeply in love off screen. Alas, he was already married as was Dottie, so they simply said goodbye. Another factoid that will probably never be confirmed about Ms. Lamour's private life is that she and J. Edgar Hoover, may have been an item at one time. Yes, you read that correctly. Dottie says that they were "friends" in her autobiography. (For the record, after her early marriage to the bandleader Herbie Kay, Dottie was married to one William Ross Howard III from '43 until his death in '78.)

Two more things that few of us know about Lamour is that she sold $300 million worth of war bonds during WWII, crisscrossing the U.S. tirelessly to support that cause. During her travels, none other than the shy author, E.B. White, the New Yorker's finest prose stylist and the creator of Stuart Little and Charlotte's Web, harbored a mad, passionate crush on the lady for fifty odd years! They met once, when she passed through Maine during a bond rally, a moment that White cherished, as did all those who enjoyed her company on film.

One Lamour film which apparently lies mouldering away in a vault is A Medal For Benny (1946) starring Dorothy, J. Carrol Naish (who was nominated for an Oscar for his role) and Arturo de Cordova. A John Steinbeck inspired story about the father of a Congressional Medal of Honor winner who was also a California "paisan", it may have aged, but modern audiences may never know its worth until--as in the case of many of Paramount films--it is issued on home video.

While her star power has faded considerably since her death, Dorothy Lamour appears to have been one of the nicest and least pretentious of stars. Asked once if she had training as a singer and actress, she laughed, and replied,"No, can't you tell?" If anyone listens to Lamour's this lush recording of "You'll Never Know," that question will be a moot one.

No word, even a mumbled one, seems to have been recorded of Popeye's comments on the occasion commemorated in the above photo, though he does seem to be wondering where to look. ;-)

Above: Christmas, 1944 and Dorothy Lamour (4th from left) joins Virginia O'Brien, Frances Langford, Judy Garland, Ginny Sims and Dinah Shore to record a song for the troops overseas.