Janet Blair

Janet Blair (born Martha Janet Lafferty; April 23, 1921 – February 19, 2007) was an American big-band singer who later became a popular film and television actress.

Janet Blair was born Martha Janet Lafferty on April 23, 1921 in Altoona, Pennsylvania, the daughter of musically oriented parents. Her father led the choir and sang solos in his church, and her mother played both piano and organ. She had a brother, Fred Jr., and a sister, Louise.

Blair's showbusiness career began as a featured singer in the Hal Kemp Orchestra. She began her film career in 1941 under contract to Columbia Pictures. During World War II, she appeared as the pin-up girl in the March 1944 issue of Yank, the Army Weekly magazine. She appeared in a series of successful films, although she may be best remembered for playing Rosalind Russell's sister in My Sister Eileen (1942) and Rita Hayworth's friend in Tonight and Every Night (1945). In the 1947 film The Fabulous Dorseys, Blair returned to her musical roots, portraying a singer. In the late 1940s, she had star billing in the crime drama I Love Trouble and the comedy The Fuller Brush Man (both 1948).

She was dropped by Columbia in 1947 and did not return to film for several years. "I gave up Hollywood and I gave up pictures" she explained. "All I got were princess parts. A girl gets tired of being a princess all of the time."

In 1962, she appeared in a rare dramatic role in the British horror film Night of the Eagle and played the wife of Tony Randall in the comedy Boys' Night Out with James Garner and Kim Novak.

In 1950, Blair took the lead role of Nellie Forbush in the American touring production of the stage musical South Pacific, with more than 1,200 performances in three years. During the tour, she married her second husband, producer-director Nick Mayo, and they later had two children.

Blair also starred in the Broadway comedy A Girl Can Tell in 1953.

In 1955, Blair starred as Venus in a live production of One Touch of Venus on NBC.

Blair appeared on television in various variety-show guest appearances and served as Dinah Shore's summer replacement on the Dinah Shore Chevy Show in 1958. She was a cast member during the 1956–1957 season on Caesar's Hour, a comedy-variety series starring Sid Caesar.

She appeared as a guest panelist on the June 9, 1957 episode of What's My Line?.

Blair costarred with Henry Fonda in The Smith Family, an ABC comedy-drama series. Her last performance on television was in a 1991 episode of Murder, She Wrote.

On radio, Blair costarred with George Raft in "Broadway," a 1942 episode of Lux Radio Theatre on CBS.

Blair recorded an album of standards entitled Flame Out! for the Dico label, which included ballads such as "Don't Explain" and "Then You've Never Been Blue".

Blair married musical arranger and conductor Louis Ferdinand Busch on July 12, 1943 in Lake Arrowhead, California. They had met four years earlier when Blair sang for Hal Kemp's band and Busch was Kemp's pianist and arranger. They divorced in March 1950. Two years later, Blair wed television producer Nick Mayo, with whom she later had two children, Andrew and Amanda. The couple remained together for 19 years until their divorce in 1971.

Blair was a Republican and campaigned for Thomas Dewey in the 1944 presidential election.

On February 19, 2007, Blair died at the age of 85 at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California from complications of pneumonia. She was cremated.

• Three Girls About Town (1941) – Charity Banner
• Blondie Goes to College (1942) – Laura Wadsworth
• Two Yanks in Trinidad (1942) – Patricia Dare
• Broadway (1942) – Billie Moore
• My Sister Eileen (1942) – Eileen Sherwood
• Something to Shout About (1943) – Jeanie Maxwell
• Once Upon a Time (1944) – Jeannie Thompson
• Tonight and Every Night (1945) – Judy Kane
• Tars and Spars (1946) – Christine Bradley
• Gallant Journey (1946) – Regina 'Ginny' Cleary
• The Fabulous Dorseys (1947) – Jane Howard
• I Love Trouble (1948) – Norma Shannon aka Gretchen Breeger
• The Black Arrow (1948) – Joanna Sedley
• The Fuller Brush Man (1948) – Ann Elliot
• Public Pigeon No. 1 (1957) – Edith Enders
• Night of the Eagle (US: Burn, Witch, Burn, 1962) – Tansy Taylor
• Boys' Night Out (1962) – Marge Drayton
• The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band (1968) – Katie Bower
• Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976) – President's Girl 3

Television

Radio

• Lux Radio Theatre (1946)
• This Is Hollywood (1946)

• Flame Out (1959, Dico)