Gale Storm

Gale Storm (April 5, 1922 – June 27, 2009) was an American actress and singer who starred in two popular television programs of the 1950s, My Little Margie and The Gale Storm Show.

Storm was born in Bloomington in Victoria County in South Texas. The youngest of five children, she had two brothers and two sisters. Her father, William Walter Cottle, died after a year-long illness when she was just 17 months old, and her mother, Minnie Corina Cottle, struggled to rear the children alone.

Storm's elder sister Lois gave her baby sister the middle name "Owaissa", a Norridgewock Native American word meaning "bluebird." Her mother took in sewing, then opened a millinery shop in McDade, Texas, which failed, and finally moved her family to Houston. Storm learned to be an accomplished dancer and became an excellent ice skater at Houston's Polar Palace.

Storm attended Holy Rosary School in what is now Midtown, Houston. She performed in the drama club at both Albert Sidney Johnston Junior High School and San Jacinto High School.

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 (1943), 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 (1945) and It Happened on Fifth Avenue (1947), 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?

In Gallatin, Tennessee, in November 1954, a 10-year-old girl, Linda Wood, was watching Storm on a Sunday night television variety show, NBC's Colgate Comedy Hour, hosted by Gordon MacRae, singing one of the popular songs of the day. Linda's father asked her who was singing and was told it was Gale Storm from My Little Margie. Linda's father Randy Wood was president of Dot Records, and he liked Storm so much that he called to sign her before the end of the television show. Her first record, "I Hear You Knockin'", a cover version of a rhythm and blues hit by Smiley Lewis, sold over a million copies.

The follow-up was a two-sided hit, with Storm covering Dean Martin's "Memories Are Made of This" backed with her cover of Gloria Mann's "Teen Age Prayer". That was followed by a hit cover of Frankie Lymon's "Why Do Fools Fall in Love". Storm's subsequent record sales began to slide but soon rebounded with a cover of her own labelmate Bonnie Guitar's haunting ballad "Dark Moon" that went to No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100.[citation needed] Storm had several other hits, headlined in Las Vegas and appeared in numerous stage plays. Storm recorded for only about two years with Dot and then gave up recording because of her husband's concerns with the time she had to devote to that career.

Storm was married and widowed twice. In 1941, while still a teenager, she married Lee Bonnell (1918–1986), then an actor and later a businessman. They had four children: Peter, Phillip, Paul, and Susanna. In 1988, two years after she was widowed, she married Paul Masterson (1917–1996), who also predeceased her.

In her 50s, she struggled with alcoholism. She later said:

During the 1970s I experienced a terribly low and painful time of dealing with alcoholism. I had Lee's unfailing support through the entire ordeal. My treatment and recovery were more than rugged. At that time, there was such a stigma attached to alcoholism, particularly for women, that it could be hazardous to your reputation and career. I thank God daily that I have been fully recovered for more than 20 years. During my struggle, I had no idea of the blessing my experience could turn out to be! I've had the opportunity to share with others suffering with alcoholism the knowledge that there is help, hope, and an alcohol-free life awaiting them.

She later became an active member of the South Shores Church. She once said: "Life has been good and I thank God for His many blessings and the happy life He has given to me." Storm was a registered Republican and campaigned for U.S. Senator Barry M. Goldwater in the 1960s.

Storm made occasional television appearances in later years, such as Love Boat, Burke's Law, and Murder, She Wrote.

In 1981, she published her autobiography, I Ain't Down Yet, which described her battle with alcoholism. She was also interviewed by author David C. Tucker for The Women Who Made Television Funny: Ten Stars of 1950s Sitcoms, published in 2007 by McFarland and Company.

Storm continued to make personal appearances and autographed photos at fan conventions, along with Charles Farrell from the My Little Margie series. She also attended events such as the Memphis Film Festival, Cinecon, the Friends of Old-Time Radio and the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention.

Storm lived alone in Monarch Beach, California, near two of her sons and their families, until failing health forced her into a convalescent home in Danville, California. She died there on June 27, 2009, aged 87.

Storm has three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to television, recordings, and radio.

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Pert, vivacious Gale Storm, movie actress, television star, recording artist, and one of America’s minor heartthrobs in the 1950s and 1960s, was born Josephine Owaissa Cottle on April 5, 1922, in the South Texas town of Bloomington to William Walter Cottle and Minnie Corina Cottle. She lost her father when she was only seventeen months old, and her widowed mother struggled to make ends meet for her five children, of which Storm was the youngest. After several moves in the state, the family finally settled in Houston, where Storm attended Albert Sidney Johnston Junior High School and San Jacinto High School. There she excelled at dancing and ice skating and became interested in theater through involvement with the high school dramatic club.

In 1939, at the age of seventeen, she was encouraged by two teachers to enter a local competition for the radio talent contest, “Gateway to Hollywood.” As the female winner, she went to Hollywood to compete for the national title, which she also won and which carried as first prize a one-year contract with a movie studio. It was at this point that “Josephine Owaissa Cottle” (less than marquee-worthy) became “Gale Storm” (the preordained screen name for the contest winner). Signed by RKO, she appeared in only two “B” films, including her debut in Tom Brown’s School Days (1940), before being dropped by the studio, but she was established enough—and willing—to take work at lesser studios, such as Monogram and Universal, which starred her in a series of low-budget teen comedies, Westerns (she starred in three films with Roy Rogers), and films noire. Arguably the best of these are It Happened on Fifth Avenue (1947), The Dude Goes West (1948), and The Underworld Story (1950).

At this point, television was rapidly becoming the media darling, and Storm readily saw its potential, while other “movie stars” were looking down on the upstart electronic entertainment form. She was first cast in My Little Margie, originally intended as a summer replacement for I Love Lucy but which proved so popular that it was given a time slot in the regular schedule and ran on NBC and CBS for 126 episodes from 1952 to 1955. A stint as hostess of the NBC Comedy Hour in 1956 led to a second sitcom, Oh! Susanna—The Gale Storm Show, which ran for 143 episodes from 1956 to 1960. Storm also made regular guest appearances on other television shows during the 1950s and 1960s.

In the midst of her television activity, Storm moved—or slipped—into yet a third career, as a recording artist. An appearance on NBC’s Colgate Comedy Hour brought her to the attention of Randy Wood, president of Dot Records, who called her and immediately offered her a recording contract. Her first release on Dot, “I Hear You Knockin’,” reached Number 2 on Billboard in 1955 and sold more than a million copies, followed by covers of such songs as Dean Martin’s “Memories Are Made of This” and Frankie Lymon’s “Why Do Fools Fall in Love.” Storm’s version of “Dark Moon” went to Number 4 in 1957. Her covers often charted higher than the originals. Simultaneously, she developed a dinner theater act, headlining in Las Vegas, and starred in the touring companies of such musicals as South Pacific, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, and Cactus Flower.

In the 1970s Storm suffered a severe addiction to alcohol but fully recovered and later lectured widely to stress that the condition was not a weakness but a disease. Her work in this area served to remove the stigma of alcoholism, especially where women were its victims. She chronicled her stuggles with the disease in her autobiography I Ain’t Down Yet: The Autobiography of My Little Margie, published in 1981.

She was married and widowed twice. Her first husband was Lee Bonnell (1918–1986), whom she met when they were the male-female co-winners of the “Gateway to Hollywood” contest. They married on September 28, 1941, in Houston. Bonnell’s film career (billing him as “Terry Belmont”) went nowhere, but he became a successful insurance executive and was the father of her four children. After his death in 1986, Storm married Paul Masterson (1917–1996), a former television executive, in 1988; he died in 1996.

During her later years Gale Storm lived alone in Monarch Beach, California, and was active at the South Shores Church. She died in a convalescent home in Danville, California, on June 27, 2009, of natural causes at the age of eighty-seven. She has three stars (for television, radio, and recording) on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.