Ella Logan

Ella Logan, born Georgina Armour Allan on 6 March 1913 in Glasgow, Scotland, was a Scottish-American actress and singer whose career spanned Broadway, film, recording, nightclub performance, and television across several decades. Her birth was registered later in March of that year. She began performing as a child under the name Ella Allan, and her U.S. Petition for Naturalization, filed on 14 May 1934 with the Southern District of New York under the name Georgina Allan Lepsch, listed her year of birth as 1910, though her documented birth year was 1913.

Logan's professional career began in British music halls, where she worked as a band singer. In 1930, shortly before her seventeenth birthday, she made her recording debut as a vocalist with the Jack Hylton Orchestra, recording "Moanin' Low" and "Can't We Be Friends?" for His Master's Voice. She subsequently toured Europe and recorded jazz on the British Columbia label, part of EMI, before emigrating to the United States in the 1930s. Her American stage career commenced in 1934 with an appearance in the Broadway musical revue Calling All Stars.

Following her Broadway debut, Logan appeared in a series of Hollywood films, among them Flying Hostess (1936), Woman Chases Man (1937), Top of the Town (1937), 52nd Street (1937), and The Goldwyn Follies (1938), in which she introduced the Gershwins' song "I Was Doing All Right." In 1937 she signed a recording contract with Brunswick Records and its new owner Columbia Records, for whom she recorded two songs from The Goldwyn Follies as well as four songs connected to her later Broadway work. She also recorded a collection of eight songs for Majestic Records in 1945, which constituted her first solo album.

Logan continued to build her Broadway résumé through the early 1940s, appearing in the revue George White's Scandals, Sons o' Fun in 1941, and Show Time in 1942. During World War II she traveled to Europe and Africa to entertain troops. She also became a presence on American television during the 1940s and 1950s, with appearances on The Ed Wynn Show, Cavalcade of Stars, and The Colgate Comedy Hour, among other programs.

Her most celebrated stage achievement came in 1947, when she returned to Broadway to originate the role of Sharon McLonergan in Finian's Rainbow. The production ran for 725 performances, and Logan introduced several of its best-known songs, including "How Are Things in Glocca Morra?," "Look to the Rainbow," and "That Old Devil Moon." The original cast album was released in 1948 on Columbia Records, becoming the label's second original cast recording, following the 1946 Broadway revival of Show Boat. Finian's Rainbow marked Logan's final Broadway appearance.

Logan's association with Finian's Rainbow extended beyond the stage. In 1954 she was cast in a proposed animated film adaptation of the show and re-recorded its score alongside Frank Sinatra; the project was ultimately canceled, and those recordings remained unreleased until the 2002 box set Sinatra in Hollywood 1940–1964. That same year she also recorded the score independently for the LP Ella Logan Sings Favorites from Finian's Rainbow, accompanied by pianist George Greeley. Released by Capitol Records in 1955, the album included songs she had not performed in the original production, such as "Necessity" and "The Begat," and was issued as catalog number H-561 in the United States and L-561 in Australia. It was her second and final solo album.

Logan's career was significantly affected by FBI surveillance that began in 1945 and continued until 1961. The bureau suspected her of communist ties but never produced evidence to substantiate the allegations. Agents placed her Los Angeles home under surveillance, monitored her travels and activities, and she was searched while traveling to New York on suspicion of acting as a Russian courier agent. Following testimony by John J. Huber before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1950, Logan was listed as a Communist sympathizer in Red Channels. In May 1956 she appeared on television in London alongside Louis Armstrong and His All-Stars. In 1965 she was part of the cast of the musical Kelly, though her role was cut during out-of-town tryouts. She continued to perform in clubs, on television, and in theatrical stock productions into the 1960s.

Logan's personal life included two marriages. Her first husband was Charles John Lepsch, a Milwaukee, Wisconsin native, whom she married on 16 April 1932 at the Parish Church of St. James, Westminster, London. After that marriage ended, she met Fred Finklehoffe, an American film writer and producer who had served as co-librettist for the 1940 musical Hi Ya, Gentlemen. Logan and Finklehoffe married in 1942, had one daughter, Binnie Quinn, and divorced in 1954. Her niece was actress and jazz singer Annie Ross, who was sent as a child to live with Logan in Beverly Hills and was raised there. Her nephew was Jimmy Logan, a Scottish actor.

Ella Logan died of cancer on 1 May 1969 in Burlingame, California, at the age of 56.