LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Dorothy Lamour: Herbie Kay
built 658 days ago
American actress/singer "Dorothy Lamour" graduated from Spencer Business College, after spending a few teen years as an elevator operator in her home town of New Orleans. By 1930, she'd turned her back on the business world and was performing in the Fanchon and Marco vaudeville troupe. In 1931, she became vocalist for the Herbie Kay Band, and soon afterward married (briefly) "Kay". In the years just prior to her film debut, Lamour built up a solid reputation as a radio singer, notably on the 1934 series Dreamer of Songs.
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Lamour's birth name was Mary Leta Dorothy Slaton; Lamour came from the name of her step-father. After winning the title of Miss New Orleans in a beauty pageant she moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1931, hoping to become a professional singer. She got a job singing with the band of Herbie Kay, who became her first husband. She ... sang on the popular Rudy Vallee radio show.
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Early in her career, Lamour met J. Edgar Hoover, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations. According to Hoover's biographer Richard Hack,[2] Hoover pursued Lamour romantically, but she was initially interested only in friendship with him. Hoover and Lamour remained close friends to the end of Hoover's life, and after his 1972 death, Lamour did not deny rumors that she'd had an affair with him in the years after she divorced Kay.
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At age 16, she was crowned Miss New Orleans, after which she and her mother moved to Chicago, where Dorothy worked as an elevator operator at Marshall Fields. Her professional career began in a vaudeville revue but she soon landed her first singing job with the Herbie Kay Orchestra on its national radio program.
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After she won the 1931 Miss New Orleans beauty contest, she and her mother moved to Chicago, where Lamour earned $17 a week as an elevator operator for the Marshall Field department store on State Street. She had no training as a singer but was persuaded by a friend to try out for a female vocalist's spot with Herbie Kay, a band leader who had a national radio show called "The Yeast Foamers", apparently because it was sponsored by Fleischmann's Yeast.
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This 16-song compilation features Dorothy Lamour's best recordings on the Brunswick label. On this collection of (mainly) movie songs, she's backed by Cy Feuer & His Orchestra (tracks 1-8), Herbie Kay & His Orchestra (tracks 9-12) and Jerry Joyce & His Orchestra (tracks 13-16).
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