Harriet Hilliard Movies

Born into a family of stock company actors, Harriet Hilliard gained fame as a vaudeville and nightclub singer in the early '30s. She made her feature film bow as the ingenue in the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers musical Follow the Fleet (1936). While Hollywood and Harriet weren't altogether compatible, she continued to thrive in clubs and radio as the vocalist for the orchestra of Ozzie Nelson, whom she married in 1935. Dropping her stage name of "Hilliard" in favor of her married name, she joined her husband in 1944 to launch the popular radio sitcom The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. By the time the series moved to TV in 1952 the Nelsons had added their real-life sons David and Ricky in the cast. The TV version of Ozzie and Harriet ran until 1966; seven years later, Ozzie tried to revive the property, minus David and Ricky, as the syndicated weekly Ozzie's Girls. The old Nelson household set was reconstructed for this revival, with the notable ommission of the brass eagle that once hung over the fireplace: "If there's one thing I got sick of looking at for fourteen years," the normally demure Harriet declared, "it's that goddamn eagle." After years of happy and wealthy retirement, Harriet Nelson died at the age of 80, having outlived both her husband Ozzie and her youngest son Ricky. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide