Alice Faye

Lovely Alice Faye in a dreamy sitting for the 1939 film ROSE OF WASHINGTON SQUARE. She was born Alice Jeanne Leppert on May 5, 1915, in Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan. Her entertainment career began in vaudeville as a chorus girl. She failed an audition for the Earl Carroll Vanities when it was revealed she was too young, before she moved to Broadway and a featured role in the 1931 edition of George White's Scandals. By this time, she had adopted her stage name and first reached a radio audience on Rudy Vallée's The Fleischmann's Yeast Hour. Faye got her first major film break in 1934, when Lilian Harvey abandoned the lead role in a film version of George White's 1935 Scandals, in which Vallee was also to appear. Hired first to perform a musical number with Vallee, Faye ended up as the female lead. This was followed with a string of successes, including "Stowaway" (1936), "In Old Chicago" (1938), "Alexanders Ragtime Band" (1938), “Lillian Russell” (1940) and "That Night In Rio" (1941). She also won the 1944 Academy Award for Best Original Song for "You'll Never Know", which she sang in "Hello, Frisco, Hello" (1943). After filming "Fallen Angel" in 1945, she was very disappointed because many of her best scenes were cut, so she walked out on her contract. Faye was married to Phil Harris from 1941-1995 in a union that produced two daughters. Three years after Phil Harris' death, Alice Faye passed away of stomach cancer four days after her 83rd birthday in 1998.

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