Dorothy Lamour, whose sarong-draped charms adorned many films of the late
1930s and '40s, especially the "road" pictures she made with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, died Sept. 22 at a hospital in Los Angeles. She was 81.
Lamour, a comely brunette who was also a favorite pinup of thousands of
GIs during World War II, was in her heyday at a time when the major studios
believed that certain actresses needed something of a signature. Veronica
Lake peered out from behind the lock of hair that invariably hid part of her
face; Lamour had her trademark sarong. She wore that clinging garment in a
series of films, from the 1936 "Jungle Princess" through such 1940s comedies
as "Road to Singapore" and "Road to Morocco."
Lamour appeared in seven of the road pictures, in which she was always the
exotic but demure girl invariably won by a crooning Crosby at the expense of
a more comedic Hope. On occasion, Lamour would join Crosby in a ballad, such
as "Moonlight Becomes You" or "Constantly." By the late 1940s, her salary
rose to a top of around $450,000 a movie.
But she had no illusions about either her acting or singing ability. Asked
by an interviewer if she had ever studied acting or singing, she replied,
"No, can't you tell?"
During World War II, Lamour was also known as "the bond bombshell" because
of the volunteer work she did selling U.S. War Bonds. In tours around the
country, she was credited with selling some $300 million of the bonds. So
effective was she as a salesman that the government put a private railroad
car at her disposal when she decided to go on a bond tour.
She received a belated citation for her bond work from the Treasury in
1965, at which time William H. Neal, at that time the director of the U.S.
Savings Bond division, credited her with being the first star to offer her
services to sell war bonds and the originator of the successful government
plan for payroll deductions for those who wanted part of their salaries set
aside for war bond purchases.
Her contributions to the war effort did not stop there. She was frequently
seen at the Hollywood Canteen, the nightclub for servicemen founded by Bette
Davis and John Garfield, where she spent many hours talking to and dancing
with GIs.
Lamour was born on Dec. 10, 1914, in New Orleans as Mary Leta Dorothy
Slaton, the daughter of John Watson Slaton and the former Carmen Louise La
Porte. Her father was a waiter. Her mother, who soon divorced her father,
worked as a waitress.
Young Dorothy never finished high school. The family finances were so
desperate that when she was 15, she forged her mother's name to a document
that authorized her to drop out of school.
Later, however, she did go to a secretarial school that did not require
her to have a high school diploma. She regarded herself as an excellent
typist and usually typed her own letters, even after she became quite
wealthy.
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.
She left Kay's group and moved to Manhattan, where Rudy Vallee, then a
popular singer, helped her get a singing job at a popular night club, El
Morocco. She later worked at 1 Fifth Avenue, a cabaret where she met Louis B.
Mayer, the Hollywood studio chief. It was Mayer who eventually arranged for
her to have a screen test, which led to her Paramount contract in 1935.
When she was at her zenith as a star, her fans suggested that an agent had
adopted her last name from the French word for "love" as a box-office ploy.
In fact, the name was close to one in the family; Lamour adapted it herself
from Lambour, which was the last name of her stepfather, Clarence, to whom
her mother was briefly married.
Lamour's more than 50 films included "Typhoon" (1939), "Johnny Apollo"
(1940), "The Fleet's In" (1941), "Star-Spangled Rhythm" (1942), "Duffy's
Tavern" (1945), "Here Comes the Groom" (1951), "Donovan's Reef" (1962) and
"Pajama Party" (1964).
The seven movies in which she appeared with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope were
"Road to Singapore (1940), "Road to Zanzibar" (1941), "Road to Morocco"
(1942), "Road to Utopia" (1946), "Road to Rio" (1948) "Road to Bali" (1953)
and "Road to Hong Kong" (1962). Although Lamour worked closely with Hope and
Crosby for many years, she said that she was not close to them personally.
Lamour's first marriage, to Herbie Kay, ended in divorce. She met her
second husband, William Ross Howard III, in 1943 while she was on a bond
tour. Howard, who had interests in the frozen food and advertising
businesses, died in 1978.
She is survived by her two sons from her second marriage, John Ridgley
Howard and Tom Howard; a stepson, William Ross Howard 4th; a grandson, and a
granddaughter.
After she retired from the movies, Lamour remained active. In 1968, she
starred in the national road show production of "Hello, Dolly!" And in 1969,
she was named to the Civic Center Commission of Baltimore, where she then
lived. She was active in various causes there for many years. In the 1980s,
she worked the cabaret circuit, where she sang many of the songs she had sung
in her movies.
In the 1987 film "Creepshow 2," she played a sloppily dressed housewife
who gets murdered. "Well, at my age you can't lean against a palm tree and
sing 'Moon of Monakoora,"' she said. "People would look at that and say,
'What is she trying to do?"'
While "Creepshow 2" was her only film role in two decades, she was
frequently seen on television, doing guest shots such shows as "The Love
Boat," "Murder, She Wrote" and, naturally, a few Bob Hope specials.
At Hope's 90th birthday four years ago, Lamour told the audience what it
was like to work with the two legends. "I felt like a wonderful sandwich, a
slice of white bread between two slices of ham," she quipped.
Another Tribute to Dottie Lamour