Singleton, Penny (1908—)

views updated

Singleton, Penny (1908—)

American actress best known for her portrayal of Blondie. Name variations: Dorothy McNulty. Born Mariana Dorothy McNulty on September 15, 1908, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; attended Columbia University; married Lawrence Singleton (a dentist), in 1937 (divorced 1939); married Bob Sparks (a film producer), in 1941; children: two daughters.

Selected theater:

Good News (1928); Follow Through (1929); Walk a Little Faster (1932); Hey

Nonny, Nonny (1932); replaced Ruby Keeler in No No, Nanette (1971).

Selected filmography:

(as Dorothy McNulty) Good News (1930), Love in the Rough (1930), After the Thin Man (1936), Vogues of 1938 (1937), Sea Racketeers (1937); (as Penny Singleton) Swing Your Lady (1938), Racket Busters (1938), Boy Meets Girl (1938), Secrets of an Actress (1938), The Mad Miss Manton (1938), Hard to Get (1938), Blondie (1938), 28 "Blondie" episodes (1938–1950), Go West Young Lady (1941), Footlight Glamour (1943), Young Widow (1946), The Best Man (1964), Jetsons: The Movie (voice only, 1990).

Penny Singleton is best remembered for her portrayal of Blondie, the long-suffering wife of bumbling Dagwood Bumstead and the mother of Baby Dumpling and Cookie, all characters based on the popular comic strip Blondie by Chic Young. The initial movie of Blondie (1938), a low-budget programmer, was an unexpected hit and spawned a series of sequels, a long-running radio show, and two short-lived television sitcoms (1957 and 1968). When her stint as Blondie ended, Singleton became a union activist for the American Guild of Variety Artists (AGVA).

A niece of former Postmaster General James Farley, Singleton was born Mariana Dorothy McNulty in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1908. After attending Columbia University, she launched her show-business career as a singer and dancer, appearing in several Broadway musicals before making her way to Hollywood. Her only notable films before Blondie were Good News (1930), in which she reprised her stage role, and After the Thin Man (1936), in which she also played a dancer. She married Dr. Lawrence Singleton, a dentist, and also published a book of children's verse.

Singleton was not the first choice for Blondie, but took over the role when actress Shirley Deane became ill. Sequels to the original movie, which co-starred Arthur Lake as Dag-wood, began in 1939 with Blondie Meets the Boss and appeared at the rate of several per year until 1943, when the studio pulled the plug. Public outcry, however, forced them to reinstate the series in 1945 (Leave It to Blondie), and it endured until 1950 (Beware of Blondie). When "Blondie" debuted on radio in 1939 (with Singleton and Lake reprising their movie roles), it was panned as "silly" by Variety. "It is impossible to predict anything but a minimum audience to a minimum engagement," they added. Defying the critics, the show lasted for eight years. In the meantime, Singleton divorced her husband and married movie producer Robert Sparks, who produced some of the Blondie films.

Although Singleton made several other feature films (Go West Young Lady, Swing Your Partner, and Young Widows), she was pretty much saddled with Blondie for her entire film career. When the films and radio series ended, she briefly, but quite successfully, appeared in nightclubs, including a stint as a headliner at the Thunderbird Hotel in Las Vegas. She was not involved in either of the Blondie television series, the first of which starred Pamela Britton and the second, Patricia Harty .

Union activities eventually drew Singleton's interest away from performing. She served two terms as president of AGVA in the 1950s, but began battling union officials over some of their policies during the early 1960s. In 1962, she testified before a House committee on union activities, accusing AGVA of creating "sweetheart contracts" which forced women working in strip bars to mingle with the customers, thus encouraging prostitution. Suspended from the union for her stand, she later sued members of the executive board, demanding that they account for treasury money. Singleton's suit and a countersuit by the union were settled out of court and the actress was reinstated as a member. In 1966, as vice president and executive secretary of the union, she organized the first strike of the Rockettes against Radio City Music Hall, which lasted for 27 days. Singleton returned briefly to the New York stage in 1971, replacing Ruby Keeler in No No, Nanette. She was also the voice of Jane Jetson for the popular Hanna-Barbera cartoons and for the feature film Jetsons: The Movie (1990).