Gale Robbins

Robbins grew up in Chicago and graduated from Lucy Flower High School in June 1939. She attended the Vera Jones Modeling School and posed for many magazine covers and ads, so much so that a 1941 newspaper article noted her face on leading magazines and her eyes and teeth as trademarks for Murine and Iodent. That same year she began singing in a stage show at the Hotel Sherman's College Inn, changing her stage name from Betty to Gale, her middle name, as reported by the Chicago Tribune. In 1940 she sang with the Phil Levant band, and in 1941 with Jan Garber. She also recorded 'Jim' with Art Jarrett for RCA Victor. During the early 1940s, she sang on CBS radio's The Ben Bernie War Workers' Program, where Walter Winchell called her 'the best part of Ben Bernie's act.' She also worked at WBBM radio in Chicago and later appeared on shows like Ice Box Follies and The Hoagy Carmichael Show. In 1949, a Billboard review praised her as 'as fine a vocalist as the town has seen in ages,' and that same year she played the female lead in the musical revue A La Carte in Hollywood.

Her film career began with a contract at 20th Century Fox late in 1942, and she made her debut in In the Meantime, Darling in 1944. She appeared in films such as Calamity Jane, My Dear Secretary, and The Barkleys of Broadway, where she sang part of two songs. She also sang 'All Alone Monday' in Three Little Words (1950). On television, she entertained at military bases with Bob Hope's troupe, was a regular on Pantomime Quiz in 1949, and hosted Hollywood House from 1949 to 1950. She released the album I'm a Dreamer in 1958, backed by Eddie Cano. She made guest appearances on The Bob Cummings Show, The Untouchables, Gunsmoke, Trackdown, Perry Mason, 77 Sunset Strip, and Mister Ed. In 1955, she signed a contract with Screen Gems for Damon Runyon Theater segments, a first for the Columbia subsidiary. Robbins married her high school sweetheart, Robert Olson, in 1943; they had two daughters, Victoria and Cynthia, and remained married until his death in 1968. She died of lung cancer on February 18, 1980, in Tarzana, California, at age 58.