While still a high schooler in her Texas home town, Josephine Cottle won a "Gateway to Hollywood" contest sponsored by film producer Jesse Lasky. Cottle was rechristened "Gale Storm" at the suggestion of a movie-magazine fan, and was promptly cast in 1940's Tom Brown's School Days. A brief RKO contract led nowhere, and soon Gale Storm was the sweetheart of Monogram Pictures, starring in several of that low-budget studio's musical "specials." Towards the end of the 1940s, Gale appeared in a number of Republic westerns opposite Roy Rogers. When actress Wanda Hendrix turned down the opportunity to star in the upcoming TV sitcom My Little Margie in 1951, Gale Storm jumped at the chance; like Hendrix, Gale didn't think much of the project at first, but was convinced that it could only get better. Whether or not My Little Margie ever truly evinced signs of improvement is a moot point: Storm became a bonafide star in the role of spunky 21-year-old Margie Belmont. The series' popularity increased tenfold when it left prime time in 1954 and entered the syndicated-rerun market. Capitalizing on her new-found celebrity, she pursued a successful nightclub career, and in 1955 cut a pair of Top Ten record singles, "Teenage Prayer" and "I Hear You Knocking." One year later, she launched a second successful TV series, Oh, Susanna (aka The Gale Storm Show) in which, for four seasons, she filled the role of Susanna Pomeroy, scatterbrained social director on the luxury liner S.S. Ocean Queen. Following her series' cancellation in 1960, Storm returned to nightclubs and played the straw-hat circuit in such musicals as Annie Get Your Gun and then went into semi-retirement, devoting her time to her husband Lee Bonnell (a fellow "Gateway to Hollywood" winner who had long since abandoned acting for the insurance business) and her children. In the late 1970s, Storm re-emerged in the public's consciousness when she announced that she'd been an alcoholic for several years; this was followed by a return to TV as spokesperson for a substance-abuse rehabilitation center in the Northwest. In 1981, Gale Storm published her biography, I Ain't Down Yet.
Gale Storm
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- Got her start at 17 after winning a local talent contest that sent her to Hollywood, gave her a name change and led to a movie contract with RKO. The male winner, Lee Bonnell, would become her first husband two years later. Her radio show My Little Margie was adapted for television as a summer replacement for I Love Lucy and successfully ran for 126 episodes (1952-55). Was elected honorary mayor of Sherman Oaks, CA, in 1953. Her first hit record, "I Hear You Knockin'," sold more than a million copies. Battled and recovered from alcoholism, as recounted in her book I Ain't Down Yet: The Autobiography of My Little Margie. Received three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one each for radio, television and recording.