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The blonde songbird was born Alice Jeanne Leppert in New York City's Hells Kitchen on May 5, 1915, the daughter of a New York police officer of German descent and his Irish-American wife.
Alice as a chorus girl
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Faye's entertainment career began in vaudeville as a chorus girl (making herself 3 years older when auditioning), before she moved to Broadway and "George White's Scandals" in 1931.
By this time, she had adopted her stage name and first reached a radio audience on Rudy Vallee's hit show.
Faye got her first major film break in 1934, when Lilian Harvey abandoned the lead role in a film version of "George White's Scandals", in which Vallee was also to appear.
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Alice in "She Learned About Sailors" (1934)
She became a hit with film audiences of the 1930s, particularly when Fox mastermind producer Darryl F. Zanuck made her his protege. He softened Faye from a wisecracking show girl to a youthful, yet somewhat motherly figure such as she played in a few Shirley Temple films.
[on Shirley Temple] She was a nice kid, with a really wonderful mother and father. We all liked her. But she was brilliant. She knew everyone's dialogue and, if you forgot a line, she gave it to you. We all hated her for that.
Faye also received a physical makeover, from being something of a singing version of Jean Harlow to sporting a softer look with a more natural tone to her blonde hair and more mature makeup.
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Cast in musicals most of all, notably "Alexander's Ragtime Band" with Tyrone Power, Faye introduced many popular songs to the hit parade. Considered less than serious as an actress and more than serious as a singer, Faye nailed what many critics consider her best acting performance in 1937's "In Old Chicago", again with Power.
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She more than held her own, in spite of a mild speech impediment, with co-stars such as Rudy Vallee, Al Jolson, Charlotte Greenwood, and Edward Everett Horton, as well as leading men such as Don Ameche, Tyrone Power, and John Payne.
[on Tyrone Power] He was the best looking thing I've ever seen in my life. Kissing him was like dying and going to heaven.
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Alice Faye as "Lillian Russell" (1940)
Color film flattered Faye enormously, and she shone in the splashy musical features that were a Fox trademark in the 1940s.
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Alice Faye, beautiful in technicolor.
Films such as "Week-End in Havana" and "That Night in Rio" made good use of Faye's husky singing voice, solid comic timing, and flair for carrying off the era's starry-eyed romantic storylines.
1943's "The Gang's All Here" is perhaps the epitome of these films, with lavish production values and a range of supporting players (including the memorable Carmen Miranda in the indescribable "Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat" number) that camouflage the film's trivial plot and leisurely pacing.
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Other Faye films include, "King of Burlesque", "On the Avenue", "You're a Sweetheart", "Hollywood Cavalcade", "Rose of Washington Square", "Little Old New York", "Lillian Russell", "Tin Pan Alley" with friend Betty Grable, etc.
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Alice and Betty Grable in "Tin Pan Alley" (1941).
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Faye and Betty Grable both at 20th Century Fox in the 1940s.
Faye's career continued until 1944 when she was cast in "Fallen Angel". Designed ostensibly as Faye's vehicle, the film all but became her celluloid epitaph when Zanuck, trying to build his new protege Linda Darnell, ordered many Faye scenes cut and Darnell emphasized.
When Faye saw a screening of the final product, she drove away from the Fox studio refusing to return, feeling she had been undercut deliberately by Zanuck.
Zanuck hit back by having Faye blackballed for breach of contract, ending her film career. Released in 1945, "Fallen Angel" was Faye's last film as a major Hollywood star.
But seventeen years after the "Fallen Angel" debacle, Faye went before the cameras again, in 1962's "State Fair" with Pat Boone. While Faye received good reviews, the film was not a great success, and she made only infrequent cameo appearances in films thereafter.
She was not happy with the way the studio system had changed.
Alice with first husband crooner Tony Martin
Faye's first marriage, to crooner Tony Martin in 1937, ended in divorce in 1940. A year later, however, she married hipster-comic/bandleader Phil Harris.
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The couple had two daughters, Alice (b. 1942) and Phyllis (b. 1944), and began working in radio together as Faye's film career declined. First, they teamed to host a variety show on NBC.
Originally conceived as a music showcase as well as a haven for Harris and Faye's tart comic style, the show came to center more on the couple and, by 1948, the show was revamped entirely into a situation comedy called "The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show".
Faye singing ballads and swing numbers in her honey contralto voice was a regular highlight of the show, as was a knack for tart one-liners equal to her husband's. The show's running gags also included barbs by Faye aimed at her rift with Zanuck, usually referencing "Fallen Angel" in one or another way.
Faye and Harris continued various projects, individually and together, for the rest of their lives. Faye made a return to Broadway after forty-three years in a revival of "Good News", opposite her old Fox partner John Payne.
In later years, Faye became a spokeswoman for Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, promoting the virtues of an active senior lifestyle.
The Faye-Harris marriage endured (54 years) until Harris's death in 1995; before that, the couple donated a large volume of their entertainment memorabilia to Harris's hometown Linton, Indiana.
Three years after her husband's death, Alice Faye died in Rancho Mirage, California from stomach cancer at the age of 83.
Her ashes rest beside those of Phil Harris at the mausoleum of the Forest Lawn Cemetery near Palm Springs, California. The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show remains a favorite of old-time radio collectors.
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Alice & Phil's final resting place
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Alice Faye senior citizen
The lady has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in recognition of her contribution to Motion Pictures.