Birthday Gale

The one and only Gale Storm was born on this date in 1922. Winning a radio talent contest in 1939, when she was 17 years old, took her from Texas to Hollywood. From there, she built a highly successful career as an actress and singer.

Get to know her in my book, Gale Storm: A Biography and Career Record, named by Classic Images magazine as one of its best books of 2018.

Gale Gets Her Due

What a pleasure it was to read the just-published review of Gale Storm: A Biography and Career Record by well-known film historian James L. Neibaur. Not just because someone whose work I admire praised the book, but also because he appreciates the lady who is its subject. Acknowledging Gale's film career and success as a recording artist along with her TV stardom, Neibaur wrote, "This book is an enlightening, enjoyable look at one of the most beloved performers in show business history, and it is filled with interesting information that will please Gale Storm's many fans."

You can find the review in its entirety here.

Gale at a TVparty!

I'm thrilled by TVparty's review of Gale Storm: A Biography and Career Record, which calls the book "a real page-turner," adding, "Tucker specializes in the kind of exhaustive research that results in compelling storytelling."

Go here to read the full review, then here or here to get your own copy.

Big Sale!

Boy, am I late posting this, so hop to it if you'd like to save 25% on any of McFarland's myriad assortment of Pop Culture books! Use the discount code PopCulture25 when ordering print editions from the publisher's website.

Yes, I see you there in the back row with your hand raised. Why, yes, as a matter of fact you could pre-order my new Gale Storm book during this sale. But don't dawdle -- sale ends Friday, May 11th.

Finis!

Having spent many hours in recent days indexing, proofreading, and just generally worrying over details, I think I can safely say that Gale Storm: A Biography and Career Record is DONE. The final product should be out soon. Having seen the page proofs, I know it will be a beautiful book; my publishers did their usual bang-up job.

At the moment, I am giving myself a couple of days off to recharge and regroup. Maybe I can even relax and enjoy reading someone else's book. On the other hand, there are also naps...

A New Look at "Margie"

Could we be in for a resurgence of interest in Gale Storm's life and career? The recent release of a two-disc DVD set, My Little Margie: The Complete First Season (Nostalgia Family Video) gives me reason to hope.

In recent years, fans wanting to get their fix of Margie, Vern, and the gang have usually had to make do with less-than-ideal DVD releases, often featuring grainy copies of episodes taped off a TV rerun. This new set, however, offers some of the cleanest, most spruced-up prints I've ever seen. It's available through several major online retailers.

That, along with the forthcoming release of a certain book on the subject, may help longtime fans celebrate Miss Storm all the more, and hopefully win her a few new admirers as well. She deserves nothing less.

Hi, Gale!

I'm delighted to unveil the beautiful cover art for my seventh book, Gale Storm: A Biography and Career Record, due out in early 2018. It's already available for pre-order at Barnes & Noble, and should be up on other sites shortly.

I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed researching and writing Gale's story.

Gale Comes Closer

I'm coming into the home stretch on my Gale Storm book, which should be out early next year. (Incidentally, that's only a working title for the book, and is likely to change).

Right now, it's proofreading, proofreading, and more proofreading, as you can see from the supply of red pens I've laid in. Hope four will be enough!

That's My Little Margie!

Sixty-five years ago tonight, Americans had their first look at a television comedy series called My Little Margie. Airing Monday nights at 9 p.m. (EST), it was the summer replacement for TV's Number One show, I Love Lucy.

TV critics were not impressed, and predicted a hasty -- and well-deserved -- demise. But as one observer later said, "Nobody liked it but the people." The show caught on immediately, making leading lady Gale Storm a full-fledged television star. The series lasted four seasons, and played in reruns for decades afterwards.

Be on the lookout next spring for my book on the life and career of Gale Storm.

Three Times a Star

This trade-paper ad gives us a good sense just how important Gale Storm was to the success of Monogram Pictures in the mid-1940s. There were supposedly "eight good reasons" why the Poverty Row studio expected to reap healthy profits in 1945; Gale starred in three of them.

That year in particular demonstrated what a versatile player Gale had become after only five years as a professional actress. In short order, she would be presented to moviegoers as the star of three markedly different films -- a drama (They Shall Have Faith, ultimately released as Forever Yours), a Gay 90s musical revue (Sunbonnet Sue), and a fast-paced contemporary comedy (G.I. Honeymoon).

My favorite of the three is Honeymoon, a clear precursor to the kind of comedy she would do as TV's My Little Margie. But they're all well worth a look, and deserve to be better-known than they are today. Let's change that.

Gale Alert

Yesterday I signed a contract with McFarland & Co. to publish my seventh book, which covers the life and career of actress/singer Gale Storm. I've been working hard on this book for nearly a year, and have uncovered some intriguing new information, both professional and personal, that I'm eager to share with her many admirers.

Look for a Gale headed your way in early 2018!

Up the Creek with Eve and Gale

Eve Arden (left) and Gale Storm, with Chick Chandler caught in the middle.

Okay, it's not the best movie you'll ever see. It's probably not even in the top ten. But how far wrong can you go with a movie that stars two of my favorite leading ladies, Eve Arden and Gale Storm?

The film in question would be Curtain Call at Cactus Creek, an amiable 1950 Western comedy that also stars Donald O'Connor, Vincent Price, and Walter Brennan. While Gale plays love interest to O'Connor, Eve is cast as a lady Price's character calls "a second-rate music hall performer who never had any talent." Her response? "With what I had a few years ago, I didn't need any talent!"

Like too many other movies from the golden age of Hollywood, this one hasn't yet had a full-fledged DVD release. However, if it doesn't turn up on one of the old movie channels, you can always find a copy here.

An Easier Way To See the World

Playing the entertainment director on a cruise ship traveling far and wide should be a good chance for an actress to see the world. In the 1950s, however, the leading lady of The Gale Storm Show found that the world came to her instead of the other way around.

Aboard the S.S. Ocean Queen: Gale Storm and Jimmy Fairfax.

Nowadays, an audience might expect to see genuine location footage of those exotic locations to which Susanna Pomeroy and the S.S. Ocean Queen traveled. But for purposes of Storm's 1956-60 sitcom, the effect was created almost entirely on studio soundstages. In a widely syndicated article that appeared under Gale's byline in 1959, she wrote, "I'm getting the greatest vicarious geography lesson of all times. The sets those studio workers build are as close to the authentic thing as you'll find. I feel I've tiptoed through the Taj Mahal and scaled the Alps, without ever having to leave home. We got to do a highland fling in a Scottish castle and a Bali dance in a tropical paradise." The illusion was good enough to keep viewers entertained for four seasons in prime time, and years of reruns afterwards. You can read more about Gale's career as the star of two long-running sitcoms (this one and its predecessor, My Little Margie), in my book The Women Who Made Television Funny. 

Happy Birthday, Margie!

In the heyday of classic TV, the month of June was usually marked by the arrival of summer replacement shows. Many would run a few weeks between June and August, never to be seen again. But others developed into popular hits that found a home on the regular year-round schedule.

One of my favorite summer replacement shows was My Little Margie, starring Gale Storm and Charles Farrell, which premiered (get ready!) 62 years ago today, on June 16, 1952. Critical response to the show was mixed, not helped by the fact that it was CBS' summer replacement for I Love Lucy. Lucy's first, groundbreaking season, when it became TV's top-rated show, set the bar high for whatever took its place, even temporarily. But if critics weren't enamored, viewers were. As Miss Storm herself would later say of her show, "Nobody likes it but the people." Given its popularity, the show had no difficulty lining up a sponsor for fall; it ultimately ran for three years, and produced 126 episodes. Once My Little Margie had run its course, Gale Storm returned to TV in 1956 for The Gale Storm Show: Oh, Susanna!, which lasted from 1956 to 1960.

Some years ago, when I was writing The Women Who Made Television Funny: Ten Stars from 1950s Sitcoms, I had the privilege of doing two telephone interviews with Miss Storm. She was lively, funny, and generous with her time. It was easy to see how she had charmed movie, television, and theater audiences over the course of her long career -- as she still does today, whenever we have the chance to enjoy her work.

A "Margie" Memento

A 45-page script for My Little Margie.

Here's a fun little collectible I acquired in researching my book The Women Who Made Television Funny -- a crew member's copy of an original My Little Margie script. Dated January 14, 1953, it's for an episode called "The Homely Margie," first aired March 5, 1953 on CBS. In this script by Frank Fox and G. Carleton Brown, Margie poses as Cousin Carolyn from Philadelphia, with a "goony voice," to resolve one of those crises only Margie and Vern Albright could find themselves in. Page One lists not only the cast regulars who will appear (and the phone numbers of stars Gale Storm and Charles Farrell -- imagine that today!) but also the guest players needed for the episode -- Joe Sparks ("handsome, Southern, 25"), Bill Houseman ("homely"), and Mr. Michaels ("bewildered"), the latter amended by hand to "Miss Michaels."

This particular copy of the script belonged to crew member Hazel W. Hall, who enjoyed a long career as a script supervisor on shows like Perry Mason and The Andy Griffith Show. Maintaining continuity was the major function of her job, and conscientious Ms. Hall has scribbled notes all over the script, noting exactly how actors made their entrances, what costumes they wore, and other details. Without careful attention to these, it might be difficult for multiple takes of the same scene, from different angles, to be successfully pieced together in the editing room. For one scene, she writes, "Open on Vern, seated reading. Margie enters from dir[ection] of b'room [bedroom], Xes [crosses] to Vern & kisses him. Leans elbows in divan as Vern turns to her." When dialogue is changed during a take, Ms. Hall writes a stern reminder -- "Margie's line 'Nite, Dad' is changed to 'Goodnight Uncle Vern' in closer three. This line must be used! in corrected 3-shot."

Would you think it took this much careful work to make one lighthearted episode of My Little Margie?

Four Degrees of Gale Storm

You know the concept -- Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. Supposedly, any entertainer can be connected within six links to the dancin' star of Footloose.

All well and good for Mr. Bacon's contemporaries, but what about someone at the height of her TV fame right around the time he was born? I decided to test the theory with none other than Gale Storm (1922-2009), the beloved star of the Golden Age sitcoms My Little Margie (1952-55) and The Gale Storm Show: Oh Susanna! (1956-60) -- and one of the subjects of my first book, The Women Who Made Television Funny.

Here's what I came up with:

     1. Gale Storm's second TV sitcom featured Roy Roberts as her boss, Captain Huxley.

     2. Roy Roberts went on to play bank president Mr. Cheever on The Lucy Show, which starred Lucille Ball.

     3. Lucille Ball made the 1968 hit movie Yours, Mine, and Ours, which featured Tim Matheson as her stepson, Mike. (Bonus point: Matheson also made a guest appearance on Here's Lucy.)

     4. Tim Matheson later starred in the wildly popular comedy National Lampoon's Animal House (1978), which gave young Kevin Bacon his film debut, as hapless fraternity pledge Chip Diller.

"Thank you, sir, may I have another?"

See, that wasn't too difficult. Anyone want to try Gracie Allen?