Alice Faye

Alice Jeanne Leppert, known professionally as Alice Faye, was born on May 5, 1915, in Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan, to Charles Leppert, a police officer, and Alice Leppert, who worked for the Mirror Chocolate Company. She had one older brother, Charles, and was raised Episcopalian. Her path into entertainment began in vaudeville, where she worked as a chorus girl. An audition for The Earl Carroll Vanities ended without success when she was deemed too young to participate.

Faye transitioned from vaudeville to Broadway, where she performed between 1931 and 1974. Her first significant stage credit came in 1931 with a featured role in George White's Scandals, a revue that marked an early milestone in her career. She also appeared on Broadway in the musical Good News. Around the same time, Faye reached radio audiences through Rudy Vallée's The Fleischmann's Yeast Hour, broadening her public profile before her film career took shape.

Her entry into Hollywood came in 1934 when Lilian Harvey vacated the lead role in the film version of George White's Scandals. Faye had initially been hired only to perform a musical number alongside Vallée, but she ultimately assumed the female lead. Fox production head Darryl F. Zanuck took her on as a protégée, reshaping her screen persona from a wisecracking showgirl into a warmer, more wholesome figure. Her appearance was also transformed, with her platinum hair and pencil-thin eyebrows replaced by a more natural look. By the late 1930s, Faye had become one of the top ten box-office draws in Hollywood, earning her the nickname "Queen of Fox."

Among her most prominent film roles was the 1938 production In Old Chicago, a part originally written for Jean Harlow. Zanuck initially resisted casting Faye, but critics responded positively to her performance. The film featured a twenty-minute recreation of the Great Chicago Fire, a sequence considered so hazardous that women other than the principal cast were barred from the set. That same year, Faye reunited with co-stars Tyrone Power and Don Ameche for Alexander's Ragtime Band, a production built around more than twenty Irving Berlin songs. One of the most expensive films of its era, it became one of the decade's most successful musicals. Faye had previously appeared with Power in Rose of Washington Square in 1939, a film that became a box-office hit despite a lawsuit from comedian Fanny Brice, who alleged that Fox had appropriated her life story without permission.

In 1940, Faye took on what she later described as one of her most challenging and personally meaningful roles, the title character in the musical biopic Lillian Russell. The physical demands of the role, including the tight corsets required for period accuracy, caused her to collapse on set on multiple occasions. That same year, after declining the lead in Down Argentine Way due to illness, she was replaced by Betty Grable. The two were subsequently paired as sisters in Tin Pan Alley, and though Fox's publicity department promoted a rivalry between them, Faye later stated in a Biography interview that the two were in fact close friends.

In 1943, Faye starred in the Technicolor musical Hello, Frisco, Hello, which became one of her highest-grossing pictures for Fox. In it, she performed "You'll Never Know," a song that went on to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song for that year and whose sheet music sold over one million copies. A contractual clause prevented Faye from officially recording her film songs, which allowed other artists, including Dick Haymes, Frank Sinatra, and Rosemary Clooney, to become more widely associated with the number. Nevertheless, the song remained closely identified with Faye throughout her career.

Her final starring film was Fallen Angel in 1945. During production, Zanuck redirected the film's focus toward actress Linda Darnell, cutting twelve of Faye's scenes along with a musical number. After viewing the final edit, Faye wrote a note to Zanuck, surrendered her dressing room keys at the studio gate, and left the lot, declining to return to Fox. Zanuck responded by having her blacklisted for breach of contract, effectively closing out her film career. Faye later returned to Fox for a character role in the 1962 remake of State Fair, which received favorable notices but performed poorly at the box office. She subsequently made cameo appearances in Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood in 1976, playing a secretary, and in The Magic of Lassie in 1978, in the role of a waitress.

Following her departure from film, Faye became a recognized presence in radio through The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show. Born in New York City, she had built a career that spanned Broadway, Hollywood, and radio over several decades before her death on May 9, 1998.