Alice Faye: The Lady with the Velvet Voice

[ClassyCo]

She was a top box office draw for 20th Century-Fox in the 1930s and 1940s, and many composers considered her the "best song-plugger" in show business. Her nostalgic rendition of "You'll Never Know" from HELLO, FRISCO, HELLO (1943) ultimately won the Oscar for Best Original Song. Along with such beauties as Betty Grable and June Haver, she perfected the flashy WWII-era musical, often set in exotic locales and featuring a backdrop of romance, comedy, and romantic ballads.

At the height of her fame, she began pleading with her home studio to assign her stronger film roles. When she finally got around to making FALLEN ANGEL (1945), she was disappointed after viewing the final print of the film. Darryl F. Zanuck, the chief of Fox, had ordered many of Faye's scenes removed from the film so that her co-star, Linda Darnell, could be emphasized. So distraught was Faye over the experience, she turned in her studio keys and drove away from Fox, therefore ending her film career. She spent the next 17 years working as a homemaker and acting on radio with her husband, musician Phil Harris.

Any fans of this talented woman?

 

[ClassyCo]

ALEXANDER'S RAGTIME BAND (1938) was Fox's biggest musical in its short history. It included 25 songs penned and conducted by Irving Berlin, and starred Faye with Tyrone Power, Don Ameche, Ethel Merman, and Jack Haley. The movie was a runaway success, eventually earning more than $5 million at the box office. It was Fox's most financially successful film thus far. It is often pegged as the film that set the standard for Fox musicals, a genre that dominated the studio in the 1940s. So popular was the trio of Faye/Power/Ameche that they were also paired together for IN OLD CHICAGO (1938).

 

[ClassyCo]