Vilma Ebsen

Vilma Marie Ebsen (February 1, 1911 – March 12, 2007) was an American actress and dancer who built her career in musical theatre and film during the 1930s, frequently performing alongside her brother Buddy Ebsen. She was born in Belleville, Illinois, and her family later relocated to Orlando, Florida. From the age of two, she trained at her father's dance studio, where she and her siblings learned to dance under his instruction. Her father also coached her in swimming, and she won a Florida state breaststroke championship in 1927.

As teenagers, Vilma and Buddy Ebsen were hired by Arthur Murray to perform at teatime for one summer at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, North Carolina, where Murray served as social director. The siblings subsequently moved to New York City in 1928 and established a vaudeville act. Their approach to partnered dancing was built on counterpoint rather than mirrored movement, with each performer executing different steps simultaneously. Among their early joint appearances was Eddie Cantor's Ziegfeld production Whoopee! After that show closed, the Ebsens performed in Atlantic City, New Jersey, where celebrity columnist Walter Winchell took notice of them. His repeated favorable mentions of the duo in his column generated multiple performance offers.

Throughout the early 1930s, Ebsen and her brother performed together on Broadway as well as in vaudeville theaters and supper clubs across the United States. Their Broadway credits together included the revue Flying Colors in 1932 and the Ziegfeld Follies of 1934. In 1935, the pair moved to Hollywood, where Vilma appeared in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical Broadway Melody of 1936, playing the role of Sally Burke.

Following the film's success, the studio moved to separate the Ebsen siblings professionally. Vilma declined Louis B. Mayer's offer to develop her into a star in the mold of Myrna Loy and returned to New York. She had married composer and bandleader Robert Emmett "Bobby" Dolan on June 24, 1933, and the couple settled back in the city. There she appeared in the Broadway musical comedy Between the Devil, which ran from December 22, 1937, through March 12, 1938, and featured British performers Jack Buchanan, Evelyn Laye, and Adele Dixon.

After Between the Devil, Ebsen stepped away from performing and devoted herself to domestic life. She and Dolan moved to Pacific Palisades, California, in 1941. They had one son, Robert, before divorcing in January 1948. Later that year she married tennis player Stanley Briggs, with whom she had a son named Michael.

In the 1950s, Ebsen and her sister Helga opened a dance school in Pacific Palisades, with partial financial support from their brother Buddy. The school offered instruction in tap, jazz, ballet, and ballroom dance, and the sisters also operated a studio in Beverly Hills teaching tap, ballet, and acrobatics. Candace Bergen was among the students. Faculty included her son Robert Dolan and ballet master Arthur Mahoney. The school held annual recitals and cotillions at venues including the Riviera Country Club and the Deauville Beach Club. In 1960, the studio staged a community theatre production of The Teahouse of the August Moon, after which it discontinued its theatre program and converted the stage space into an expanded dance area. Vilma Ebsen died at the age of 96 in Thousand Oaks, California.