Vivian Blaine

Vivian Blaine (1921-1995) was a talented American stage and film actress and singer. She became famous as Miss Adelaide, the long-suffering chorus girl with a heart of gold in the original Broadway production of the musical ‘Guys and Dolls’ (1950). She reprised the role in the 1955 film adaptation. Throughout her career, Blaine appeared in a total of 20 film productions.


Dutch postcard, no. 851. Photo: 20th Century Fox.


Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit., no. 2027. Photo: 20th Century Fox.

Following the ad-libs of Stan Laurel

Vivian Blaine was born Vivian Stapleton in Newark, in 1921. She was the daughter of insurance agent Lionel 'Leo’ Stapleton and Wilhelmina Tepley. Her parents divorced when she was quite young. The cherry-blonde-haired Vivian appeared on local stages as early as 1934 and she started touring after graduating from South Side High School.

She performed as a singer and dancer in various nightclubs such as the Copacabana in New York from 1937. At the same time, Stapleton's stage name Vivian Blaine was born. In 1942, Blaine's agent and soon-to-be husband Manny Franks arranged that she signed a contract with 20th Century Fox. Franks made her lose 40 pounds before she could make her film debut.

She debuted in the sports film It Happened in Flatbush (Ray McCarey, 1942) with Lloyd Nolan and Carole Landis. In 1943, she starred alongside Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in the comedy Jitterbugs (Malcolm St. Clair, 1943). Stan Laurel highly respected her for being able to follow his ad-libs and participate in the comic bits without breaking up and ruining the scene.

Two years later, she appeared in Nob Hill (Henry Hathaway, 1945) alongside George Raft and Joan Bennett. In about four films in the 1940s, Blaine starred alongside Carmen Miranda, including the comedy-drama Greenwich Village (Walter Lang, 1944).

She played the role of Emily Edwards in the musical film State Fair (Walter Lang, 1945) alongside Jeanne Crain and Dana Andrews. As Blaine had experience as a singer, she was allowed to sing her songs herself, while the other actors except Dick Haymes were dubbed by professional singers, as was customary at the time. The title ‘That's for Me’, which she sang in the film and later was released on Decca Records, remained in the Billboard magazine charts for four weeks, reaching number six. This was despite a ban by the film studio prohibiting the actors from releasing vocal recordings.


Dutch postcard by DRC, no. 39. Photo: 20th Century Fox M.P.E.A. Sent by mail in 1948.


British postcard in the Picturegier Series, London, no. D 860. Photo: Samuel Goldwyn / MGM. Frank Sinatra and Vivian Blaine in Guys and Dolls (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1955).

She stopped the show each night

In addition to her career as a film actress, Vivian Blaine also appeared on Broadway in New York. Between 1950 and 1953, Blaine played Miss Adelaide in the musical ‘Guys and Dolls’ original cast. She stopped the show each night with her rendition of ‘Adelaide's Lament’, in which she complains about having a bad cold because of her long engagement to gambler Nathan Detroit. An album of the musical was released with the same cast that same year.

The unique language used by the gangsters and gamblers in the musical came from Damon Runyon's short stories ‘The Idyll Of Miss Sarah Brown’ and ‘Blood Pressure’. Blaine took over her role for the film version, Guys and Dolls (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1955), starring Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra and Jean Simmons.

The film was shot in its entirety on the outside areas of the MGM studios (the Goldwyn Lot) where Times Square and parts of Broadway had been recreated. The set designers used the same logos in the neon signs as in Times Square but adapted them so that the company names became unrecognizable. The choreography of the songs was provided by Michael Kidd. Guys and Dolls was awarded two Golden Globes and received several Oscar nominations. The film was a huge success, raising $20 million worldwide on a budget of $5 million.

In 1957, she acted alongside Red Skelton in the comedy Public Pigeon No. 1 (Norman Z. MacLeod, 1957). One of her last films was the Sci-Fi-Horror film Parasite (Charles Band, 1982), with Demi Moore in her first major film role. Blaine's other Broadway appearances include roles in ‘A Hatful of Rain’ (1956-1958), 'Gypsy’ (1960 and 1962) and ‘Zorba’ (1970-1971 and 1984). After her Broadway appearance in ‘Company’ in 1972, she appeared on national television at the 25th Tony anniversary special. This led to a revival of her TV career with guest appearances on shows like Fantasy Island (1978), and The Love Boat (1978), and a recurring role in the cult hit Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976).

In 1983, Blaine became the first celebrity to make public service announcements for AIDS-related causes. She made numerous appearances in support of the then-fledgling AIDS Project Los Angeles (APLA). Her final onscreen appearance was in Murder, She Wrote (1985). She played 'Rita Bristol' an ageing former star, trying to make a comeback. Blaine was married three times. She divorced her first husband, Manny Franks, in 1956. In 1959, she married Milton Rackmil, the head of Universal Pictures and Decca Records. They divorced in 1961. She took her third and final husband, electrician Stewart Clark, in 1973. In 1995, Vivian Blaine died of congestive heart failure in Beth Israel Hospital North in New York City at the age of 74. She was buried in the Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York.


Dutch postcard by Sparo (Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam). Photos: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The picture stars are Judy Garland, Betty Hutton, Vivian Blaine (twice), Monica Lewis, Pier Angeli, Ann Blyth, Mario Lanza, Coleen Gray, and Jane Powell. The postcard must date from ca. 1951, when Blyth and Lanza starred together in The Great Caruso (Richard Thorpe, 1951).


Vintage postcard. Photo: M.G.M.


Vintage postcard. Photo: M.G.M.

Sources: Find A Grave, Wikipedia (Dutch, German and English) and IMDb.