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Personal Info
Known For
Acting
Birthday
April 5, 1922
Died
June 27, 2009
Place of Birth
Bloomington, Texas, USA
Also Known As
- Gail Storm
- Josephine Owaissa Cottle
Gale Storm
0.3 Popularity
Biography
Josephine Owaissa Cottle, known professionally as Gale Storm, was an American actress and singer who 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 success was a cover version of "I Hear You Knockin'," which hit #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1955. When Storm was 17, two of her teachers urged her to enter a contest on Gateway to Hollywood, broadcast from the CBS Radio studios in Hollywood. First prize was a one-year contract with a movie studio. She won and was immediately given the stage name Gale Storm. Her performing partner (and future husband), Lee Bonnell from South Bend, Indiana, became known as Terry Belmont. 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, playing opposite Jimmy Lydon and Freddie Bartholomew. She worked steadily in low-budget films released during this period. In 1941, she sang in several soundies, three-minute musicals produced for "movie jukeboxes". She acted and sang in Monogram Pictures' Frankie Darro series, and played ingénue roles in other Monogram features with the East Side Kids, Edgar Kennedy, and the Three Stooges, most notably in the film Swing Parade of 1946. Monogram had always relied on established actors with reputations, but in Gale Storm, the studio finally had a star of its own. She played the lead in the studio's most elaborate productions, both musical and dramatic. She shared top billing in Monogram's Cosmo Jones, Crime Smasher, opposite Edgar Kennedy, Richard Cromwell, and Frank Graham in the role of Jones, a character derived from network radio. Storm starred in a number of films, including the romantic comedies G.I. Honeymoon and It Happened on Fifth Avenue, 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. She performed in more than three dozen motion pictures for Monogram, experience which made possible her success in other media. In the 1950s, she made singing appearances on such television variety programs as The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom. In 1950, Storm made her television debut in Hollywood Premiere Theatre on ABC. From 1952 to 1955, she starred in My Little Margie, with former silent film actor Charles Farrell as her father. The series began as a summer replacement for I Love Lucy on CBS, but ran for 126 episodes on NBC and then CBS. The series was broadcast on CBS Radio from December 1952 to August 1955 with the same actors. Her popularity was capitalized on when she served as hostess of the NBC Comedy Hour in the winter of 1956. That year, she starred in another situation comedy, The Gale Storm Show (Oh! Susanna), featuring another silent movie star, ZaSu Pitts. The show ran for 143 episodes on CBS and ABC between 1956 and 1960. Storm appeared regularly on other television programs in the 1950s and 1960s. She was both a panelist and a "mystery guest" on CBS's What's My Line?
Known For
7.0
Girl in TV Skit About Door Frame (uncredited)
Abbott and Costello Meet Jerry Seinfeld
1994
7.5
Maisie Mayberry
Murder, She Wrote
1984
6.3
Gale Storm
The Love Boat
1977
6.3
Rose Kennycott
The Love Boat
1977
6.0
Honey Feather Leeps
Burke's Law
1963
6.0
Dr. Nonnie Harper
Burke's Law
1963
5.4
Self
The Mike Douglas Show
1961
6.0
Self
The Dinah Shore Chevy Show
1956
🎬
5.5
Susanna Pomeroy
The Gale Storm Show
1956
🎬
0.0
The NBC Comedy Hour
1956
Credits
Abbott and Costello Meet Jerry Seinfeld
as Girl in TV Skit About Door Frame (uncredited)
1994
7.0
Murder, She Wrote
as Maisie Mayberry
1984
7.5
The Love Boat
as Gale Storm
1977
6.3
The Love Boat
as Rose Kennycott
1977
6.3
Burke's Law
as Honey Feather Leeps
1963
6.0
Burke's Law
as Dr. Nonnie Harper
1963
6.0
The Mike Douglas Show
as Self
1961
5.4
The Dinah Shore Chevy Show
as Self
1956
6.0
🎬
The Gale Storm Show
as Susanna Pomeroy
1956
5.5
🎬
The NBC Comedy Hour
1956
0.0
🎬
Celebrity Playhouse
1955
0.0
The Wonderful World of Disney
as Self
1954
7.8
How to Go Places
as Herself
1954
0.0
The Ford Television Theatre
as Hope Foster
1952
7.3
This Is Your Life
as Self
1952
6.5
Woman of the North Country
as Cathy Nordlund
1952
4.5
My Little Margie
as Margie Albright
1952
3.0
🎬
Rim of the Wheel
as Virginia Sutton
1951
0.0
The Texas Rangers
as Helen Fenton
1951
5.7
Al Jennings of Oklahoma
as Margo St. Claire
1951
5.0
Between Midnight and Dawn
as Katharine 'Kate' Mallory
1950
5.8
The Colgate Comedy Hour
as Self
1950
6.8
The Underworld Story
as Catherine Harris
1950
6.1
Curtain Call at Cactus Creek
as Julie Martin
1950
6.3
The Bob Hope Show
as Self
1950
7.0
The Kid from Texas
as Irene Kain
1950
5.3
What's My Line?
as Self - Panelist
1950
6.9
What's My Line?
as Self - Mystery Guest
1950
6.9
Robert Montgomery Presents
1950
5.6
Abandoned
as Paula Considine
1949
6.2
Stampede
as Connie Dawson
1949
5.5
Walk a Crooked Mile
as Voice on Tape Recorder
1948
5.9
The Ed Sullivan Show
as Self
1948
6.8
The Dude Goes West
as Liza Crockett
1948
5.8
It Happened on Fifth Avenue
as Trudy O'Connor
1947
7.0
Swing Parade of 1946
as Carol Lawrence
1946
4.2
Sunbonnet Sue
as Sue Casey
1945
5.0
G.I. Honeymoon
as Ann Gordon
1945
0.0
Forever Yours
as Joan Randall
1945
0.0
🎬
I'm a Shy Guy
1943
0.0
🎬
Glamour Girl
1943
0.0
Where Are Your Children?
as Judy Wilson
1943
4.0
Campus Rhythm
as Joan Abbott, aka Susie Smith
1943
4.5
Nearly Eighteen
as Jane Stanton
1943
5.0
Revenge of the Zombies
as Jennifer Rand
1943
5.2
Cosmo Jones, Crime Smasher
as Susan Fleming
1943
4.0
Rhythm Parade
as Sally Benson
1942
0.0
🎬
Foreign Agent
as Mitzi Mayo
1942
4.0
Smart Alecks
as Ruth Stevens
1942
5.4
Lure of the Islands
as Maui
1942
5.0
He Plays Gin Rummy
as Singer
1942
0.0
Man from Cheyenne
as Judy Evans
1942
7.5
Freckles Comes Home
as Jane Potter
1942
5.0
🎬
The Merry-Go-Roundup
1941
0.0
Red River Valley
as Kay Sutherland
1941
7.7
Uncle Joe
as Clare Day
1941
6.0
Jesse James at Bay
as Jane Fillmore, 'St. Louis Journal' Reporter
1941
4.2
Let's Go Collegiate
as Midge Lawrence
1941
5.0
Gambling Daughters
as Lillian Harding
1941
5.0
🎬
Let's Get Away from It All
1941
0.0
Saddlemates
as Susan Langley
1941
0.0
Penthouse Serenade
1941
0.0
City of Missing Girls
as Mary Phillips
1941
4.0
🎬
I Know Somebody Who Loves You
1941
0.0
One Crowded Night
as Annie Mathews
1940
4.0
Tom Brown's School Days
as Effie
1940
7.2