Lucille Norman Movies
Lucille Norman was a singer/actress whose film career began almost more by accident than design. She was born Lucille Pharaby Boileau in Omaha, NE, in 1921, into a performing family; both of her parents were singers on the Chatauqua stage. Her father, who later became a minister, was also her first singing teacher, and she first sang in public at his lectures. Because of her parents' constant travels -- which brought her from Omaha to Kansas City, MO, and then Lincoln, NE -- she was raised in large part by her grandparents into her teen years. After completing grade school, she joined her parents in Colorado. She had appeared in operettas in school and got a singing spot on local radio, which led to an engagement for one summer with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. She earned a scholarship to the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and after two years there felt ready to try New York.Norman sang in a radio audition for the Metropolitan Opera, and while she didn't get an overture from that organization, she did receive the offer of a movie contract, which she turned down. By the time she was back in Cincinnati, however, she had changed her mind and returned to New York to do a screen test for MGM, which was successful. Suddenly, it was off to Hollywood and a small role, acting and singing, in the Judy Garland/Gene Kelly vehicle (which was also Kelly's screen debut) For Me and My Gal. Norman was good enough in the film that she almost certainly could have gotten more film work, but fate intervened in the form of Fred Finklehoffe, who had co-written the screenplay and was casting a show he was producing. He saw Norman and immediately offered her a role in the piece, called Show Time, a vaudeville-style entertainment that was touring the country. Norman succeeded Kitty Carlisle when it got to New York, and found herself doing songs and sketch comedy with Jack Haley and George Jessel. Following the run of the show, she returned to radio work and also later married actor Bruce Kellogg.
By the second half of the 1940s, Norman was back in California, singing at the Hollywood Bowl and once more doing movie work, starting with Painting the Clouds With Sunshine. Her recording career began in the late '40s and early '50s, and by the early '50s she was working along with no less a figure than Gordon MacRae, cutting a studio cast recording of Jerome Kern and Otto Harbach musical Roberta for Capitol Records. Norman also did a Colgate Comedy Hour installment in the same work with MacRae. Alas, the particular brand of music in which Norman specialized was already declining by the mid-'50s, and her screen roles -- culminating with her work as the female lead opposite Randolph Scott in Carson City (1952) -- had also disappeared after the mid-'50s. By the end of the decade, she was retired from professional entertainment. Norman passed away in 1998, and is best remembered today for her work in For Me and My Gal and her recordings with MacRae. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
- 1953
Ray Middleton and Bill Shirley, Republic Pictures' answer to Hope and Crosby, star in Sweethearts on Parade. Middleton and Shirley play Cam Ellerby and Bill Gamble, the featured singers in a travelling medicine show. While stopping over in a small town, Cam renews his acquaintance with his former wife Sylvia (Eileen Christy), who now has a pretty, grown-up daughter -- Kathleen -- played by Lucille Norman. When Kathleen makes noises about a show-business career, Sylvia won't hear of it -- nor does she approve of her daughter's romance with Bill. One gets the sneaking suspicion that everything will turn out all right in the end for all four protagonists. With 26 songs in the picture, how could things not turn out all right? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ray Middleton, Lucille Norman, (more)
- 1952
When a final tally is made, it may turn out that Andre De Toth directed as many superior Randolph Scott westerns as the more celebrated Budd Boetticher. In De Toth's Carson City, Scott is cast as a railroad construction engineer known only as Silent Jeff. His plans to build a railroad line between Nevada's Carson City and Virginia City are met with hostility by the locals, who feel that where there are trains, there are bandits. Sure enough, a criminal gang headed by Big Jack Davis (Raymond Massey) and Jim Squires (James Millican) begins drawing up plans to plunder Carson City. When Silent Jeff vows to get rid of the town's criminal element, the villains frame him on a murder charge. The climax is one of the best of its kind, with Silent Jeff forced to contend with both a landslide and a big-scale gold bullion heist. Lucille Norman plays the heroine, whose attentions are torn between Silent Jeff and second lead Richard Webb (later TV' s Captain Midnight). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Randolph Scott, Lucille Norman, (more)
- 1951
Starlift was Warner Bros' attempt to revive the "all-star patriotic musical" format which had worked so well during WW II. The wisp of a plot concerns Mike Nolan (Dick Wesson) and Rick Williams (Ron Hagherty), San Francisco-based airmen who serve as crew members on a shuttle to Korea. To impress a group of movie starlets making a personal appearance, Mike and Rick claim that they're due to be sent into combat. Actress Nell Wayne (Janice Rule) falls in love with Rick, leading to a major publicity blitz and culminating with a special USO presentation for all the Korea-bound servicemen in Frisco, starring virtually everyone on the Warners' contract roster. Among the stars making personal appearances (and sometimes delivering songs, whether they can sing or not!) include Gordon MacRae, James Cagney, Ruth Roman, Doris Day, Gary Cooper, Frank Lovejoy, Phil Harris, Randolph Scott and Jane Wyman. Reportedly, the comedy team of Tommy Noonan and Peter Marshall made its movie debut in Starlift, though they don't appear in the currently available prints. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Doris Day, Gordon MacRae, (more)
- 1951
Painting the Clouds with Sunshine was a remake of the 1929 musical Gold Diggers of Broadway, which no longer exists for comparison (though its first remake, Gold Diggers of 1933, has been safely preserved). Carol (Virginia Mayo), Abby (Lucille Norman) and June (Virginia Gibson) arrive in Las Vegas for the express purpose of landing millionaire husbands. Securing work as a singing trio, the girls do their best to cozy up to potential wealthy mates, but always seem to end up with the "wrong" kind of guy. Abby falls for impecunious gambler Vince Nichols (Dennis Morgan). The girls decide to use Vince's resources to save hotelier Felix Hoff (S.Z. Sakall) from bankruptcy. Enter Vince's tight-lipped Boston-banker cousin Bennington (Tom Conway), determined to rescue his relative from gold-diggers, and on and on the plot rolls, occasionally interrupted by splashy, Technicolorful musical numbers emphasizing the physical attributes of the three heroines. Like MGM's Singin' in the Rain, Painting the Clouds with Sunshine was designed primarily to showcase Warner Bros' backlog of songs from its early-talkie musicals. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dennis Morgan, Virginia Mayo, (more)
- 1946
When an actor attempts to produce an elaborate movie, disaster ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Frank Morgan, Eleanor Powell, (more)
For Me and My Gal, a leisurely period musical, represents the first on-screen dancing of MGM's new star Gene Kelly. Judy Garland plays a member of a vaudeville troupe consisting of herself, George Murphy, Ben Blue and Lucille Norman. She leaves the act to join up with Kelly, who promises to propel her to the big time. Two unsuccessful years later, Garland and Kelly are still struggling in the small time, while Murphy and his bunch are headliners. Kelly nearly throws Garland over for singer Marta Eggerth, but Judy remains loyal--at least until Kelly deliberately breaks his hand to avoid serving in World War I. Having lost her brother Richard Quine to the war, Garland denounces Kelly as a coward and walks out. Kelly redeems himself by joining an overseas entertainment troupe, saving several lives when he finds himself under attack on the front. Judy and Gene are at last reunited in Paris. A major break for both Gene Kelly and Judy Garland (who proved once and for all in this film that she was no longer just a "juvenile"), For Me and My Gal was based on a story by Howard Emmett Rogers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Judy Garland, George Murphy, (more)
