Gloria DeHaven and Frank Sinatra in 1944's 'Step Lively'
RKO Radio Pictures Inc./Photofest
7/31/2016 by Mike Barnes and Duane Byrge
She wandered into Charlie Chaplin's 'Modern Times' and later appeared in 'Best Foot Forward,' 'Three Little Words,' 'Two Girls and a Sailor' and 'Out to Sea.'
Singer-actress Gloria DeHaven, the perky star of MGM musicals in the 1940s and a stalwart of show business for more than six decades, has died. She was 91.
DeHaven, who made her screen debut in Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times (1936) as Paulette Goddard's kid sister - her father served as an assistant director on the film - died Saturday while in hospice care in Las Vegas, her daughter, Faith Fincher-Finkelstein, told The Hollywood Reporter. DeHaven suffered a stroke about three months ago, she said.
The vivacious DeHaven, a studio player at MGM, appeared in a number of top films with leading stars, including Thousands Cheer (1943) with Gene Kelly;Two Girls and a Sailor (1944) with June Allyson and Van Johnson; Step Lively (1944) with Frank Sinatra; Summer Holiday (1948) with Mickey Rooney; The Doctor and the Girl (1949) with Glenn Ford and Nancy Reagan; Two Tickets to Broadway (1951) with Janet Leigh and Tony Martin; and The Girl Rush (1955) with Rosalind Russell.
In Three Little Words (1950), a biography of Tin Pan Alley songwriters Bert Kalmar (played by Fred Astaire) and Harry Ruby (Red Skelton), DeHaven played her real-life mother, vaudeville star Flora Parker. She sang the 1920s tearjerker "Who's Sorry Now?" in the film.
DeHaven also performed in numerous other movies, including Best Foot Forward (1943), Yes, Sir, That's My Baby (1949), Summer Stock (1950), Down Among the Sheltering Palms (1953), So This Is Paris (1954), Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976) and the dreadful Bog (1979).
Her last movie appearance came as a lovely widow and romantic interest of Jack Lemmon's character on the cruise-ship set Out to Sea (1997).
She played Annie "Tippy-toes" Wylie, a bisexual CB radio aficionado who also had an affair with the husband of Louise Lasser's character, on the fabled Norman Lear syndicated series Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and had a continuing role on the short-lived 1974 ABC series Nakia, starring Robert Forster.
DeHaven also appeared on the soaps As the World Turns, Ryan's Hope (playing a woman who for a while lived in a trailer camp) and All My Children.