Swell Dames # 145 – Janet Blair

Janet Blair was born Martha Janet Lafferty on April 23, 1921 in Altoona, Pennsylvania, Altoona being located in Blair County from which she adpted her stage name. Her parents were musically oriented . 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, niether of whom had entertainment careers.

Blair, who was a vivacious, honey-haired lass began her showbusiness career as a featured singer in the Hal Kemp Orchestra which she acquired at age 18 after Kemp held extensive auditions in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. She debuted as the main female vocalist in April 1940, replacing Nan Wynn (who had been preceded by Clair Martin, Alice Faye) and performed with the band at prominent locations like Hollywood’s famed Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles. The role ended when Hal Kemp died in Madera, California in December 1940, aged 36, following a road accident while driving from Los Angeles to a performance in San Francisco in foggy conditions. His car was hit by an oncoming truck, and he died in hospital from pneumonia two days later.

Blair began her film career in 1941 under contract to Columbia Pictures after she had been spotted performing at the Cocoanut Grove shortly before the Kemp tragedy by a talent agent at Columbia, and she signed a $100 a week contract. Blair costarred with George Raft in “Broadway,” (1942) and performed alongside Cary Grant in Once Upon a Time (1944). During World War II, she appeared as the pin-up girl in the March 1944 issue of Yank, the Army Weekly magazine. 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 1948, she had star billing in the crime drama I Love Trouble and the comedy The Fuller Brush Man.

She was dropped by Columbia in 1948 and did not return to film for several years, stating. “I gave up Hollywood and I gave up pictures. All I got were princess parts. A girl gets tired of being a princess all of the time.”

In 1950 divorced musical arranger and conductor Louis Ferdinand Busch whom she had married in 1943. They had met four years earlier when Blair sang for Hal Kemp’s band and Busch was Kemp’s pianist and arranger.

Blair took the lead role of Nellie Forbush in the American touring production of the stage musical South Pacific, undertaking 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, Andrew and Amanda. The couple remained together for 19 years until their divorce in 1971.

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 recorded an album of standards entitled Flame Out! in 1959 for the Dico label, which included ballads such as “Don’t Explain” and “Then You’ve Never Been Blue”.

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 1968, Blair played Katie Bower, spouse to Buddy Ebsen’s Calvin Bower in Walt Disney Pictures’ The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band.

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.