Dorothy Lamour

The elevator operator who ended up reigning over Hollywood

Dorothy Lamour didn't choose the sarong on her own. It was a decision made by the marketing department in 1936 that ended up defining her public image for the rest of her life. Mary Leta Dorothy Slaton was born in New Orleans, and before becoming a star she worked as an elevator operator at a major department store in Chicago.

Exoticism was a very profitable business.

In The Jungle Princess, Paramount struck unexpected gold. The actress not only sang with a deep contralto voice but also held the close-up with unusual composure. Still, the studio quickly typecast her in roles as a mysterious native girl that had little to do with her real life in Louisiana.

Before she ever reached the movies, she had already won the Miss New Orleans pageant in 1931. That title launched her career as a singer with Herbie Kay's orchestra, and he would become her first husband. But Lamour's fate was tied to a garment she privately came to detest because of the creative limits it imposed on her.

The Silk Uniform and the Millions of Dollars

The industry required her to wear the famous sarong even when the script didn't strictly call for it. In 1940, her first big break came with Road to Singapore. There she teamed up with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby to form a comedy trio that saved the studio's books during the toughest years in the industry.

Those movies were pure improvisation and controlled chaos.

Lamour served as the serious counterpoint to her costars' heavy-handed jokes. She appeared in six entries of the Road to… series and proved she could be funny without losing her composure next to two comedy giants. But outside the spotlight, her real commitment was to national politics. She sold more than $300 million in war bonds during World War II by traveling the country by train.

And her commitment to patriotism earned her a status that the movies had denied her.

Because while her on-screen characters were simple male fantasies on remote islands, she ran her finances with an iron fist. In 1943 she married William Ross Howard III and stayed married to him until his death in 1978. She was an anomaly of stability in an environment prone to quickie divorces and tabloid scandals.

The Decline of the Jungle Queen

As the 1940s drew to a close, interest in tropical fantasies collapsed dramatically. In 1952, she had a supporting role in The Greatest Show on Earth under the direction of Cecil B. DeMille. It was one of the rare times the studio let her step away from palm trees and coconuts to play a real woman.

She tried to revive her career on the Broadway stage and in television. In 1967, she joined the national tour of the musical Hello, Dolly! and later accepted small parts in shows such as Murder, She Wrote. She published her autobiography, My Side of the Road, in 1980, aiming to debunk several rumors about her relationship with Crosby.

Her last big-screen appearance was in the horror anthology Creepshow 2, filmed in 1987. She died at her Los Angeles residence on September 22, 1996, of a heart attack. She was 81 years old at the time of her death.