Background
Cass Daley was born on July 17, 1915 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. She was a daughter of Frank Dailey, a streetcar conductor, and his wife Catherine, a homemaker. She spent her childhood in Philadelphia.
(Although a second-tier star, Cass Daley's zany personalit...)
Although a second-tier star, Cass Daley's zany personality and striking visual presence made her a top-shelf entertainer during the late 1930s and throughout the ensuing decades. Likewise, her numerous appearances on radio, film and stage kept Daley in the spotlight as a singer/comedienne and actress. The dozen selections on the suitably-monikered Queen of Musical Mayhem (2004) reflect both her exuberance and uncanny penchant for dead-on impersonations and mimicry. Many of these recordings originated as Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS) broadcasts, which were initially transcriptions of well-known North American shows including the Kraft Music Hall and Tommy Dorsey Show. The AFRS then began developing exclusive programming for those serving during World War II., such as Mail Call and Command Performance. The latter is where the anthology begins as Daley offers up a whimsical "Medley of Popular Songs" adapted from the musical The Fleet's In (1942). "You Can't Blame a Girl for Trying" -- which would go on to become one of Daley's signature songs -- is a highlight and was part of the 1945 Command Performance Christmas spectacular hosted by Bob Hope and aired on Christmas Day of the same year to troops overseas. She teams up with Nelson Eddy for a farcical "Indian Love Call" -- which had been a huge hit for Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald. The largest bulk of material is from Daley's edition of Personal Album with straight and sublime readings of "Along the Navajo Trail," "It Might as Well Be Spring," "I'll Buy That Dream" and an effervescent take of "Sentimental Journey." Enthusiasts are also treated to a light-hearted "You Are My Sunshine" with Bob Burns from a July '44 Tommy Dorsey Show. Queen of Musical Mayhem concludes with a guest shot on the Bing Crosby hosted Kraft Music Hall where Daley cuts loose with "I'm a Patriotic Jitterbug at the Stagedoor Canteen." ~ Lindsay Planer, Rovi
https://www.amazon.com/Queen-Musical-Mayhem-Cass-Daley/dp/B0007RTB6A?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B0007RTB6A
(Visually, she was a cross between an uncoiling spring and...)
Visually, she was a cross between an uncoiling spring and Walt Disney's cartoon character Goofy. Aurally, she came at you like an express train roaring out of a tunnel. Vaguely in the same mould as Martha Raye, Judy Canova and Carol Burnett, she was known as Cass Daley, that wild American singer-comedienne with the buck teeth and large bottom. Born Katherine Daley in North Philadelphia, her big break came in 1936 when she got a part in the 'Ziegfeld Follies', eventually going on to being cast in various 1940s Hollywood movies. Through film and radio exposure, she became a well known artiste without ever rising to the ranks of a star. However, Cass Daley was always good entertainment value and a more than passable singer, as can be heard on the 25 mainly comic songs from her heyday presented here.
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dancer singer actress comedienne
Cass Daley was born on July 17, 1915 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. She was a daughter of Frank Dailey, a streetcar conductor, and his wife Catherine, a homemaker. She spent her childhood in Philadelphia.
Daley attended the local public schools of Philadelphia. At the age of ten she began singing and dancing on an empty bread crate in front of a neighbor's store. Daley moved with her family to Camden, New Jersey, just across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, where she went to high school.
At age seventeen Daley began working at a local nightclub, combining singing with her job as hat-check girl and electrician. The next year, Daley began performing in amateur acts and in local theaters and cabarets. An enthusiastic singer and dancer, Daley was not physically beautiful and thus was an easy mark for hecklers. She learned to ad-lib comic retorts and to poke fun at herself in self-defense. Her husband soon persuaded her to turn to comedy. From this beginning she developed an hilarious comic song-and-dance act that featured numerous rambunctious sight-gags.
Her unabashed clowning soon caught the eye of New York entertainment impresario Florenz Ziegfeld. Having previously incorporated the raucous comedy of stage star Fanny Brice in his famous Follies, Ziegfeld was convinced Daley could follow in Brice's footsteps. At the age of twenty, she signed a contract to star in the 1936-1937 Ziegfeld Follies at Manhattan's Paramount Theater. She also changed her name to Cass Daley so it would fit on the theater marquee.
Her talents were soon in great demand. Over the next four years she proved in several Broadway shows and on radio that her funny face and physical behavior were not her only talent. In particular, her numerous appearances on "Fitch Bandwagon, " a radio show, highlighted her uncanny sense of timing. She soon became America's most popular comedienne.
In 1941, Daley got her big break in movies when she signed a long-term contract with Paramount Pictures to do a series of lighthearted musical comedy films in which she was usually featured in several boisterous and acrobatic song-and-dance numbers. In each number she would cut up and go through numerous slapstick contortions. All together she made a dozen full-length films and shorts between 1941 and 1954, among them, The Fleet's In (1941), Star-Spangled Rhythm (1942), Crazy House (1943), Out of This World (1945), Ladies' Man (1947), Here Comes the Groom (1951) (produced and directed by Frank Capra), and Red Garters (1954).
While none of her films received critical acclaim, many were popular, especially those made during World War II. Moreover, many enduring songs debuted in these films, among them, the big-band favorite "Tangerine" from The Fleet's In, the Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer hit "That Old Black Magic" from Star-Spangled Rhythm, and Johnny Mercer and Hoagy Carmichael's "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening" from Here Comes the Groom.
Early in 1948, at the height of her career, she decided to cut back on taking film roles and have a family. Returning once for making Red Garters in 1954, Daley again retired to New York to raise her son. Not until 1967 did she decide to attempt a comeback. When her son entered college, she returned to the movies, playing a supporting role in Paramount's The Spirit Is Willing (1968) and in 1969 in the moderately successful Hal B. Wallis comedy Norwood: The Phynx. In 1972, she returned to Broadway in a vaudeville revue revival named The Big Show of 1936. At the height of her comeback, she died in an accident at her home in Hollywood.
Cass Daley was a popular comedienne known for her ability to do physical humor and for her crazy raucous singing. She appeared in several Paramount musicals during the '40s and '50s and became a popular nightclub and radio comedienne. This led her to heading the 1936 Follies on Broadway. She was awarded two Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Television at 6301 Hollywood Boulevard and for Radio at 6710 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.
(Although a second-tier star, Cass Daley's zany personalit...)
(Visually, she was a cross between an uncoiling spring and...)
Quotations: "Nobody ever gets out of show business. I made a horrible mistake when I decided to marry and raise my son and forgot about my career 25 years ago. "
Quotes from others about the person
In 1946 one magazine's theater critic described her act: "When she comes on stage she looks like a nice, terribly shy girl in a long white gown. After a moment's pause and a demure curtsy, she suddenly chases the announcer, swings on the velvet curtain, howls a snatch of some unrefined ditty, walks on the side of her heels, pops her teeth and straddles the mike. "
In 1932, she met and married her theatrical agent, Frank Kinsella. Her only child, a son named Dale, was born in late 1948. In 1951, she nearly lost the light of her life when the brakes of the family car (parked on an incline near the family home) failed and rolled toward three-year-old Dale. The boy's elderly nurse managed to push him out of the way but was herself fatally injured.
Her twenty-year marriage to Kinsella came to an end in 1955. By mid-1967, she had remarried, this time to Hollywood businessman Robert Williamson.
