Rosemary de Camp Movies
From her earliest stage work onward, American actress
Rosemary DeCamp played character roles that belied her youth and fresh-scrubbed attractiveness. On radio, DeCamp developed the vocal timbre that enabled her to portray a rich variety (and age-range) of characters. A peripheral performer on
One Man's Family at 21, DeCamp showed up on several radio soap operas and anthologies before settling into the role of secretary Judy Price on the Dr. Christian series in 1937. DeCamp made her film bow in
Cheers for Miss Bishop (1941), in which she and most of the cast were required to "age" several decades. With
The Jungle Book (1941), the actress played the first of her many mother roles. The most famous examples of DeCamp's specialized film work are
Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), in which she was the Irish-American mother of
George M. Cohan (
James Cagney, who was 14 years her senior), and
Rhapsody in Blue (1945), in which she played
George Gershwin's Jewish mother (Gershwin was impersonated by
Robert Alda, who was one year younger than DeCamp). Even when playing a character close to her own age, such as the Red Cross worker in
Pride of the Marines (1945), DeCamp's interest in the leading man (in this case the same-aged
John Garfield) was strictly maternal. On television, DeCamp was Peg Riley to
Jackie Gleason's Chester A. Riley on the original 1949 run of
The Life of Riley. She also played rakish
Bob Cummings' levelheaded sister Margaret in
Love That Bob (1955-59), and later was seen as
Marlo Thomas' mother on
That Girl (1966-70). In 1965, Rosemary subbed for her old friend
Ronald Reagan as host on
Death Valley Days; FCC rules of the time compelled the removal of Reagan's scenes when the show was telecast in California, where he was running for governor. Upon Reagan's election,
Robert Taylor took over as host, but DeCamp was installed as permanent commercial spokesperson for 20 Mule Team Borax. Semi-retired for several years, DeCamp reemerged in 1981 for a "de-campy" cameo part in the horror spoof
Saturday the 14th. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
