Mary Hatcher

She was a pert brunette with a winning smile who decorated several minor screen entertainments in the 1940s. A genuinely talented singer and tap dancer, even a fair actress, Mary Hatcher enjoyed a promising start, yet -- like so many other hopefuls -- her career barely got off the ground. Mary was born and raised in Florida where her good singing voice (coloratura soprano) found a willing sponsor in her father's wealthy employer. With ample funds for her vocal tuition thus available she went on to train under the famous Metropolitan Opera diva Gladys Swarthout. For some reason, or other, grand opera didn't pan out and Mary went on to take singing lessons from a local band leader, Frank Grasso, who also happened to be musical director at a radio station in Tampa. She then sang on radio broadcasts and eventually made her public debut at a 'Latin American Fiesta' in 1940. This was followed by gigs at various charity events for British War Relief. In 1941, still cheerfully subsidized by her father's boss, she undertook further studies at the Juilliard School of Music. Mary's first attempt to get into films proved to be inauspicious, having twice failed auditions in New York. Her mother was ambitious for her to succeed and this may well have prompted the Hatcher family moving to California. In 1944, Mary was successfully screen-tested and signed to a seven-year contract by Paramount. Simultaneously, she was loaned out to a touring New York Theatre Guild production of "Oklahoma". As a result, she didn't make her screen bow until 1946. Her first three pictures were bit parts. Most of her subsequent leads turned out to be lightweight in nature. Her first was a star-studded musical jamboree: Variety Girl (1947) featured cameos from just about every Paramount contract star (except for Betty Hutton who was pregnant at the time). Opportunities for an upcoming starlet to shine were inevitably limited. At least, Mary got to warble "Julicat" in George Pal's 5-minute Puppetoon segment of "Romeow and Julicat". She then played one of three sisters (the others were Veronica Lake and Mona Freeman) in a tepid black & white period musical (Isn't It Romantic (1948)), danced with Desi Arnaz in the cheerful low-budget musical Holiday in Havana (1949) and starred as a tomboy love interest opposite Mickey Rooney in The Big Wheel (1949) (an implausible tale of a garage mechanic who ends up becoming an Indianapolis 500 champion). In 1949, Mary landed the plum role of Dallas Smith in the original Broadway musical production of Johnny Mercer's "Texas, L'il Darlin" which ran for a respectable 293 performances, closing in September 1950. The following year, she made her movie swan song playing Maid Marian in a Poverty Row production of Tales of Robin Hood (1951), purportedly the pilot for a failed TV series. Mary gave up film work shortly thereafter and faded into relative obscurity. Both of her husbands were involved in the big band scene: her first was the comedian Herkie Styles (at the time an alumnus of the Benny Goodman orchestra, later a regular on the Gomer Pyle: USMC (1964) TV show), the second was the renowned swing-era drummer Alvin Stoller.