Esther Brodelet (1906-89) started working as a dancer while in her twenties. She obtained a contract with Fox in 1932 and appeared in around 30 pictures, mostly musicals, over the next fifteen years.
After brief appearances in a couple of Fox films, Brodelet was loaned to MGM for Dancing Lady.
Brodelet’s only credited role was in one of Twentieth Century-Fox’s Jones Family pictures, Young As You Feel (1940). Her last film was Mother Wore Tights (1947), again playing a chorus girl. She was a little old for this, but apparently always took ten years off her age in Hollywood.
Roles had always been sparse, and Brodelet apparently had a sideline as a chicken farmer, selling eggs to the stars.
After leaving the film industry, Brodelet settled down for forty years of married life.
Bonita Beryl Barker (1916-2006) started dance training as a young child and by her teen was appearing in amateur productions. She travelled to Hollywood when she was just out of school.
Barker appeared as a chorus girl in eight pictures, one of which was MGM’s Dancing Lady. As a change of pace, she was credited in a singing role in Outlaw’s Highway (1934), starring Kazan the Wonder Dog. She also seems to have been in a 1934 comedy short called Back to the Soil.
Bonita Barker went out on something of a high, as a chorus girl in Lewis Milestone’s version of Anything Goes (1936). She then retired from show business, settling into domesticity and a long life.
Thanks to Those Obscure Objects of Desire for much of this information.
Scores of young women appeared in the chorus lines of mid-30s’ musicals, but Marjorie Schuyler Fisher (1919-89) was one of the few who went on to have a career. Not a glorious career, but she made over 170 pictures, and starred in some of them.
Bari was given training and a six-month contract with newly-formed Twentieth Century Fox when she was just 16, though she had already been playing bit parts for several years. In 1935, she appeared in at least 26 releases, always in small, uncredited roles.
The first role with any substance given to Bari was Klari the maid in The Baroness and the Butler (1938), acting with William Powell. Thereafter, she was mostly restricted to featured parts in ‘B’ pictures, though frequently with top billing. Typical films included Kit Carson (1940) and Sleepers West (1941), and she played opposite George Sanders in The Falcon Takes Over (1942). Bari’s occasional ‘A’ pictures included Margie (1946) and Has Anyone Seen My Gal (1952).
Bari carried on working, predominantly in television, until 1968.
Two of Lynn Bari’s early chorus girl roles were in Metro musicals: Dancing Lady and The Great Ziegfeld.
Lee Bailey (1908-2001) was one of the hundreds of young women who made a handful of appearances in the chorus lines of Hollywood musicals during the 1930s, then spent the rest of their lives in, it is to be hoped, happy obscurity.
Bailey made six appearances over a twelve-year period, which suggests she might have been performing in some other medium alongside this work. She debuted in It’s Great to Be Alive (1933) and played her last role in State Fair (1945).
The only MGM musical featuring Lee Bailey is Dancing Lady.
Florine Crawford Bale (1910-90) trained in tap and ballet as a child, equipping her for her film debut under the command of Busby Berkeley in Footlight Parade (1933).
Bale only appeared uncredited, in ten pictures, but apparently became well known in Hollywood as a commander in the women’s section Victor McLaglen’s California Light Horse Regiment, established by the actor to fight communism and play polo.
Florine Bale appeared in four Metro musicals: Dancing Lady, The Cat and the Fiddle, The Merry Widow and The Night is Young.
After leaving show business, Bale worked in the real estate business.
Marion Esther Roddan (1911-77) had a short career in Hollywood, appearing in just eleven films in seven years. All her appearances were uncredited, and were generally as dancers or saloon/harem girls.
As Gail Arnold, she made her screen debut as one of the many chorus girls in MGM’s Dancing Lady. In her final role, she was a dancer for Michael Curtiz in Warner’s Virginia City (1940). More of the same came in between.
IMDb claims that Jean Alden (dates unknown) secured a Universal contract in 1926 after winning a beauty contest. If she did, this does not seem to have translated into any screen work.
The IBDb (the Broadway equivalent) cites Jean Alden as part of the chorus line in a 1926 production of Rainbow Rose. This would appear more in line with her known film appearances.
Alden is listed as one of the chorus girls in MGM’s Dancing Lady. A few years later, the studio engaged her again as the miniature Apache dancer who falls to her death from the table in The Devil-Doll. Finally, she appeared as a dancer in Swiss Miss.
Confusion surrounds the participation in MGM’s Dancing Lady of Shirley Deane Blattenberger (1913-83). She is given two IMDb entries, as Shirley Aaronson and Shirley Deane, but these would both appear to be Ms Blatternberger.
After some early stage experience as a child performer, and training with Albertina Rasch, Shirley Aaronson (having adopted the name of her stepfather), made her screen debut as a chorus girl in Dancing Lady. After a few years playing bit parts, she changed her name to Shirley Deane, and went on to play featured roles in films such as Charlie Chan at the Circus (1936).
In 1937, she played an imposter claiming to be the long-lost heiress in Nancy Steele is Missing. She was then cast as Bonnie in Big Business, the first of the Jones Family series at 20th Century-Fox.
Deane is perhaps best-remembered for playing Princess Aura in Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940).
Eunice Mary Quedens (1908-90) was a contender for the title of Hollywood’s greatest wisecracking dame. In around seventy films, with dialogue produced by scores of writers, she had a unique ability to make every word sound like her, a consistent persona across every picture.
Arden opted out of education at 16 to join a stock company. After gaining acting experience, she made her screen debut in 1929, in a backstage musical called Song of Love. Starting as she meant to go on, she played a wisecracking showgirl. No further film roles came her way, but by 1933 she was appearing on Broadway, ending up in the Ziegfeld Follies (1934), where she finally took the name Eve Arden.
Arden continued to work on Broadway until 1941, at the same time taking on increasingly larger film roles. Her breakthrough in Hollywood came with a featured supporting role in Stage Door (1937), where her fast-talking character stood out in a sea of female talent.
Eve Arden never carried a film as the lead actor, but provided strong support in character roles, typified by her performance as the title character’s friend in Mildred Pierce (1945), for which she was Oscar nominated.
Later in her career, Arden was notable as the secretary in Anatomy of a Murder (1959), and gave a fine dramatic performance in The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1960). And towards the end of her career she became familiar to younger audiences as Principal McGee in Grease (1978) and its 1982 sequel.
Alongside her Hollywood career, Arden was an extremely successful radio performer, and worked on television.
Eve Arden was in three MGM musicals. She started out uncredited-but-noticeable in Dancing Lady. A few years later, she played the treacherous Peerless Pauline in the Marx Brothers’ At the Circus. Finally, and aptly, she played a wisecracking chorine in Ziegfeld Girl.
