“DeHaven was one of the few stars remaining from Hollywood’s Golden Age of film, when no problem couldn’t by solved be tap dancing through it and every broken heart could be healed with a song”, wrote Rosemary Rossi of The Wrap.
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Gloria DeHaven, the daughter of vaudeville stars who carved out her own successful career in Hollywood musicals and comedies of the 1940s and 50s, has died. The following year, she starred opposite Frank Sinatra in the musical Step Lively, giving him his first on-screen kiss. Her return was in the 1948 musical flop “Summer Holiday”. Her last film appearance was in 1997’s Out to Sea, with Jack Lemmon, and her last TV role came three years later with a 2000 appearance on Touched by an Angel.
DeHaven’s parents were the popular vaudevillian and stage performers Carter DeHaven and Flora Parker.
Her breakout role was in the Lucille Ball musical comedy “Best Foot Forward” (1943), a film that also boosted Allyson’s fortunes.
DeHaven appeared in her first film, Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times” in 1936, where her father served as an assistant director on the film.
She later turned more and more to TV series, and had a recurring role in the 1970s soap opera spoof “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman”. Fred Astaire portrayed Kalmar in the film, with Red Skelton playing Ruby.
She was also married to real estate developer Martin Kimmel for one year and twice Wednesday businessman Richard Fincher.
“If you don’t stretch yourself in this business, you’re dead”, DeHaven told the Los Angeles Times in 1984. She made three more films before being signed as a contract player with MGM, for which she appeared in several films alongside some of the biggest stars of the day.
“I thought I would be very nervous”, she said at the time.
DeHaven was married four times, including once to actor John Payne and twice to businessman Richard Fincher.
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Her survivors include her son Thomas Payne, daughter Kathleen Hope Payne, son Harry Fincher, daughter Faith Fincher-Finkelstein and nephew Carter DeHaven.
