Janet Blair

 Janet Blair, born Martha Janet Lafferty (April 23, 1921 – February 19, 2007)

Blair began her acting career on film in 1941, being placed under contract to Columbia Pictures. Before that, she was a featured singer in the Hal Kemp Orchestra. During World War II, she appeared as the pin-up girl in the March 1944 issue of Yank magazine. She made a string of successful pictures, although she is today best remembered for playing Rosalind Russell's sister in My Sister Eileen (1942)[5] and Rita Hayworth's best friend in Tonight and Every Night (1945). In the 1947 film The Fabulous Dorseys, Blair returned to her musical roots, portraying a singer. In the late 1940s, Blair had star billing in the crime drama I Love Trouble and the comedy The Fuller Brush Man (both 1948), but was dropped by Columbia and did not return to pictures for several years. She made a rare dramatic appearance in the British horror film Night of the Eagle (1962). She played the wife of Tony Randall in the comedy Boys' Night Out, a motion picture released in the same year, which starred James Garner and Kim Novak. Blair appeared on television in various variety-show guest appearances, and was a cast member during the 1956-57 TV season on Caesar's Hour, a comedy-variety series starring Sid Caesar. Blair recorded an album of standards entitled Flame Out! for the Dico label, which included ballads such as "Don't Explain" and "Then You've Never Been Blue." She was married twice, with two children from her second marriage. On February 19, 2007, Blair died at the age of 85 at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California, succumbing to complications from pneumonia. She was cremated.