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Star of film, TV, stage Gloria DeHaven dies at 91

By LINDSEY BAHR, Associated Press
Published: August 1, 2016, 8:39pm

LOS ANGELES — Gloria DeHaven, the daughter of vaudeville stars who carved out her own successful career as the bright-eyed, vivacious star of Hollywood musicals and comedies of the 1940s and ’50s, died Saturday in Las Vegas. She was 91.

Her agent Scott Stander said Monday DeHaven was in hospice care after a stroke a few months ago.

As an MGM contract player, the DeHaven also posed for her share of bathing suit pictures, which made her a pinup favorite of GIs in World War II.

As a teen, she toured with big bands, and an MGM talent scout spotted her at a concert in Texas.

After minor roles in “Best Foot Forward” and “Broadway Rhythm,” DeHaven achieved stardom in 1944’s “Two Girls and a Sailor,” in which she and June Allyson played sisters vying for the affections of Van Johnson.

MGM went on to employ DeHaven frequently as the second lead in such films as “Summer Holiday,” “Summer Stock,” “The Yellow Cab Man” (with Red Skelton) and “Three Little Words,” the biopic of songwriters Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby. In the latter film, she portrayed her mother.

DeHaven never achieved the level of stardom that Allyson and Kathryn Grayson had in MGM musicals but had better luck at other studios, starring with Donald O’Connor in “Yes, Sir, That’s My Baby,” Tony Curtis in “So This Is Paris” and Glenn Ford in “The Doctor and the Girl.”

With her movie career waning in the 1950s, DeHaven turned to television and theater. She hosted ABC’s 15-minute “Gloria DeHaven Show,” appeared on variety specials and became a regular on Bob Hope’s overseas tours to entertain soldiers.

She also starred in the series “Nakia,” “Delta House” and “Girl Talk,” and played roles in the soap operas “Ryan’s Hope” and “As the World Turns.”

DeHaven starred on Broadway with Ricardo Montalban in “Seventh Heaven” in 1955 and toured in “The Sound of Music,” “The Unsinkable Molly Brown,” “Hello Dolly” and “Cactus Flower.”

After a decadeslong absence, DeHaven returned to films in 1997 with “Out at Sea,” playing a mature woman who has a shipboard romance with Jack Lemmon.

“I thought I would be very nervous,” she said at the time. “It was like I’d never been away, like going home.”

DeHaven was married and divorced four times, including twice to Florida auto dealer Richard Fincher.

She had two children, Kathy and Thomas, with her first husband, actor John Payne, and two with Fincher: Harry and Faith. Harry Fincher did some acting under the name Richard DeHaven, according to the Internet Movie Database.

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