Born 1922 as Josephine Owaissa Cottle in Bloomington, Texas, American actress and singer Gale Storm had a role in the radio version of Big Town. After winning the contest in 1940, Storm made several films for the RKO Radio Pictures studio, her first was Tom Brown’s School Days. In 1941, she sang in several soundies, three-minute musicals produced for “movie jukeboxes”.
Storm starred in a number of films, including the romantic comedies G.I. Honeymoon (1945) and It Happened on Fifth Avenue (1947), the Western Stampede, and the 1950 film-noir dramas The Underworld Story and Between Midnight and Dawn. U.S. audiences warmed to Storm and her fan mail increased.
After a film career from 1940 to 1952, she starred in two popular television programs of the 1950s, My Little Margie and The Gale Storm Show. Six of her songs were top ten hits. Storm’s greatest recording success was a cover version of “I Hear You Knockin’,” which hit #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1955.
Storm died in 2009, aged 87. She has three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to television, recordings, and radio.
Take a look at these vintage photos to see the beauty of young Gale Storm in the 1940s and 1950s.
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