Trivia of Alice Faye

 Trivia of Alice Faye (5 May 1915 - 9 May 1998)

*Her entertainment career began in vaudeville as a chorus girl. She failed an audition for the Earl Carroll Vanities when she was found to be too young, then 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 "Alice Faye".

*She became a popular film star for audiences of the 1930s, particularly when Fox production head Darryl F. Zanuck made her his protégée. He softened Faye from a wisecracking showgirl to a youthful, and yet somewhat motherly figure, such as her roles in a few Shirley Temple films.She received a physical makeover, going from a version of Jean Harlow to a wholesome appearance, in which her platinum hair and pencil-line eyebrows were swapped for a more natural look.

*Darryl F. Zanuck resisted casting Faye as the female lead in "In Old Chicago (1938)" as the role had been written for Jean Harlow.But finally Alice Faye was cast at the insistence of both Tyrone Power and director Henry King.The film contained a 20-minute finale, a recreation of the Great Chicago Fire, a scene so dangerous that women, except for the main stars, were banned from the set.The result critics applauded Faye's performance.

*Irving Berlin was once quoted as saying that he would choose Faye over any other singer to introduce his songs, and George Gershwin and Cole Porter called her the "best female singer in Hollywood in 1937".During her years as a musical superstar (from the 1930s to the early 1940s), Alice Faye managed to introduce 23 songs to the Hit Parade. She was the first female crooner and equivalent to Bing Crosby.

*One of Faye's most memorable parts was the title role in the musical biopic Lillian Russell (1940). Faye always named this film as one of her favorites, though it was also her most challenging role. The tight corsets Faye wore for this picture caused her to collapse on the set several times.

*After declining the lead role in for Down Argentine Way (also 1940) because of an illness, Faye was replaced by the studio's newest musical star, Betty Grable. She was paired as a sister act opposite Grable in the film Tin Pan Alley (also 1940). During the making of the picture, a rumor arose that a rivalry had arisen between the two. In a Biography interview, Faye disclosed that the Fox publicity department built up the rumor, and that the two actresses were in fact close friends.

*Feeling she had given one of the best dramatic performances of her career, Faye was so upset by Darryl F. Zanuck's editing hack job on Fallen Angel (1945), in order to benefit newcomer Linda Darnell, that she literally walked away from the studio and didn't return for 16 years.