Shirley Ross (bornBernice Maude Gaunt, January 7, 1913 – March 9, 1975) was an American actress and singer, notable for her duet withBob Hope, "Thanks for the Memory" fromThe Big Broadcast of 1938. She appeared in 25 feature films between 1933 and 1945, including singing earlier and wholly different lyrics for theRodgers and Hart song inManhattan Melodrama (1934) that later became "Blue Moon."
Ross was born inOmaha, Nebraska, the elder of two daughters of Charles Burr Gaunt and Maude C. (née Ellis) Gaunt. Growing up in California,[2] she attended Hollywood High School and UCLA,[3] training as a classical pianist.
By age 14, she was giving radio recitals[4][5] and made her first vocal recordings at 20 withGus Arnheim's band.
Here she attracted the notice of the up-and-coming songwriting duoRodgers and Hart, who selected her to sell their latest offerings to MGM. One song, "Prayer," later rewritten as "Blue Moon", led to a successful screen test in 1933. This test, a duet with jazz vocalistHarry Barris, was included in MGM's musical-comedy short subjectGentlemen of Polish (1934), starring the comedy team of Al Shaw and Sam Lee.
MGM cast Ross in a number of small parts in films that includedManhattan Melodrama withClark Gable andWilliam Powell in which, made up to look black, she sang "The Bad in Every Man," an earlier version of "Blue Moon," in a Harlem nightclub.[6]
In 1936, MGM loaned her to Paramount, and she was paired withRay Milland inThe Big Broadcast of 1937.[7] Although this was officially a leading role, the Big Broadcast format included a busy programme of musical comedy sketches with big-name performers who somewhat overshadowed her. But one press review declared that she had ‘one of the sweetest voices of any actress on the screen’[8] and predicted a big future for her. Paramount signed her to a five-year contract;[9] meanwhile her introduction to the songwriting team ofLeo Robin andRalph Rainger would prove significant.[7]
Her duet withBing Crosby inWaikiki Wedding was a Robin-Rainger number titled "Blue Hawaii." Thus began a three-year period during which Ross was cast opposite either Crosby orBob Hope on five occasions.[a][7]After a career interruption in the making ofThis Way Please withBuddy Rogers, when she walked off the job, alleging thatJack Benny's wife,Mary Livingstone, was trying to sabotage her scenes,[10][11][12][13] she was cast opposite Hope inThe Big Broadcast of 1938. Their duet, "Thanks for the Memory", became a huge hit and a defining moment for two careers headed in opposite directions – for Hope, a springboard to bigger and better things; for Ross, the pinnacle.[14] It would prove to be her sole enduring claim to fame.[15]
The duet's great success sparked spin-off movies with Bob Hope,Thanks for the Memory (1938) and another calledSome Like It Hot (1939; later renamedRhythm Romance to avoid confusion with theunrelated 1959 feature). AlthoughThanks for the Memory did produce another hit song, "Two Sleepy People",[16] the films themselves made little impact, apparently reflecting Paramount's declining interest in musical comedy. Although Ross would have been willing to play straight drama and had performed well inPrison Wife,[17] Paramount relegated her to supporting roles in two minor romantic comedies, which did nothing for her career, even though one of them (Paris Honeymoon) teamed her once more with Crosby.[7] Her extremely promising career suffered a steep decline and never recovered.
Although Ross knew that her understated appeal was better suited to the screen than the stage, she played the lead inRodgers and Hart’s Broadway musicalHigher and Higher (1940), featuring the song "It Never Entered My Mind." The show was a critical failure. Ross signed withRepublic Pictures for feature films, and did some radio work, most notably as a regular cast member onThe Bob Burns Show between 1943 and 1947.[18]
Ross married agent Ken Dolan in 1938 at age 25. When he became ill Ross increasingly attended him, which became an early retirement for her. He died in 1951, when Ross was 38.[19] She married Eddie Blum in 1955, when she was 42. She had 3 children. In 1959 she said that she had given up show business to devote her time to her children, and did not regret the decision a bit.[20]
Ross died from cancer inMenlo Park, California, aged 62. As her married name, Bernice Dolan Blum, was not well known, her death was not widely publicized. But Hope, with whom she had an enduring real-life friendship,[19][21][22][23] did not fail to commemorate her death. He and Crosby sent a 5-foot tall cross with white carnations and a spray of red roses to her funeral. According to her daughter, the service was mobbed.[23]
^Less than a year later, as their erstwhile co-star's career floundered, Hope and Crosby themselves were paired, beginning the longstanding and hugely successfulRoad to ... series.
^Ross, Lanny (April 1, 1939). "Who's Who".Picturegoer Weekly. p. 43.ProQuest1771127984.
^"Father of Charles Burr Gaunt" posted on October 23, 1999 by Caren Lea, Ross' niece. "I am looking for the parents of Charles Burr Gaunt, born in Iowa 1886. Worked as telegrapher on railroad. Later moved to Omaha, Nebraska and married Maude Ellis. They had two daughters and moved to California around 1923."
^"Cello Virtuoso in Recital",The Los Angeles Times, June 15, 1927, p. A13. "Cello Virtuoso in Recital: BERNICE GAUNT – Pianist, SAMUEL – Cellist, Los Angeles Railway Orchestra Broadcasts."
^Dr. Ralph L. Power:"GERMANS WILL TALK OVER KHJ",The Los Angeles Times, August 4, 1927, p. A-5. "Interesting bits of juvenile entertainment on the child hour at KHJ last evening included the 13-year-old pianist, Bernice Gaunt."
^Max Cryer:Love Me Tender: The Stories Behind the World's Favourite Songs (Titirangi, Exisle Publishing Limited, 2008),p. 117
^Roy Hemming:Discovering Great Singers of Classic Pop: A New Listener's Guide to the Sounds and Lives of the Top Performers and Their Recordings, Movies, and Videos (New York, Newmarket Press, 1991),pp. 93–94
^Sidney Skolsky:"Hollywood:The Gossipel Truth",The Milwaukee Sentinel, May 26, 1937, p. 3. "The Mary Livingstone and Shirley Ross feud began because Shirley was talking loudly about Mary in the makeup department and Mary happened to be a thin wall away."
^Louella O. Parsons:"Shirley Ross Has New Job",The Rochester Journal, June 29, 1937, p. 6. "Chit chat over Shirley Ross' withdrawal from the cast of 'This Way Please' has subsided.Adolph Zukor, no less, denied that his company had dropped her from the payroll and that she was taken out of the cast because of a battle with Mary Livingstone."
^Jimmy Fidler:"Hollywood: Short Short Story",The Pittsburgh Press, August 19, 1940, p. 9. "A local theater marquee the other day displayed these billings: 'Thanks for the Memory' and 'March of Time.' And ithas been a march of time, for when that picture was made, Shirley was an established star and Hope was making his debut. Today, Hope is a star – while Miss Ross is in a Broadway show, hoping for a comeback."
^abEmail correspondence with Victoria Rosendahl, May 15, 2012. "Hope and Crosby sent a five-foot-tall cross, with white carnations and a spray of red roses, to her funeral. It was mobbed."
Portrait of Shirley Ross seated on a desk, 1933. Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive (Collection 1429). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
You may hear Shirley Ross with Bob Hope singing "Thanks For The Memory" in 1938
Shirley Ross appears with Bob Hope in the movie "Rhythm Romance" in 1939Here on Archive.org
