MovieChat Forums > Footlight Parade (1933) Discussion > Dorothy Lamour is NOT in This Movie!!

Dorothy Lamour is NOT in This Movie!!

posted 16 years ago by HarlowMGM
7 replies | jump to latest

For the last two decades or so there have been rumors that future movie legend Dorothy Lamour was a chorus girl in this film. Those rumors are FALSE. She was only 18 at the time (not to young to be a chorus girl then admittedly) and she was not in California in 1933. I think the rumor got started because there is a chorus girl named Donna LaBarr in the movie and maybe some people thought with that name she was Dorothy Lamour or somebody somewhere confused the names.

I also think the fact that is fairly proven that John Garfield has a bit in this years before his own stardom seemed to cement the fantasy Dorothy Lamour was in this movie.

But she is not. And unlike Garfield, no one has produced stills or movie frames with an alleged Lamour appearance.

IMDB for years was quite accurate and did not list Lamour in the credits for this film. However other places on the net have and somebody apparently alerted them to this fact and they went along with the crowd by mistake but it's wrong, Dorothy Lamour is not in this film.

[–] karmala2 16 years ago

Actually, no, John Garfield is NOT in this movie, either. That rumor has been kicking around for years because there is a sailor that pops his head up from behind a barrel just for a split second, that resembles John Garfield. His daughter had a documentary on TCM a couple of years back and Robert Osbourne asked her specifically about that and she stated for the record that he was definitely NOT in this movie.

"I told you a million times not to talk to me when I'm doing my lashes"!

[–] HarlowMGM 16 years ago

Thanks, I did not see the TCM documentary so I didn't know of the daughter's response. THE FILMS OF JOHN GARFIELD book counts the film and shows a blow-up of the man in the movie with a tale that Garfield had hitchhiked to Hollywood and gotten the bit on a lark and THE AMERICAN FILM INSTITUTE CATALOG lists him as an extra (but not Lamour) and normally their credits come strictly from studio files. However I wouldn't be surprised if even more so than the legend of Lamour being in it, the legend of Garfield being in it is so firmly believed and written about it is an accepted fact without any proof (studio papers, etc.) that he was the actor in question.

[–] karmala2 16 years ago

You're kidding! Amazing. I assume that is why Robert Osbourne made it a point to ask Julia Garfield about it.

Anyhow, the Dorothy Lamour rumor was/is news to me. Never heard of that one.

"I told you a million times not to talk to me when I'm doing my lashes"!

[–] macemace 15 years ago

You know, I don't know every single thing my father did when he was a young man and I bet John Garfield's daughter doesn't either.

"Mediocre Marx Brothers is better than no Marx Brothers!"

[–] Xcalat3 15 years ago

Yes she IS!

When there's no more room in hell, The dead will walk the earth...

[–] lewis-51 14 years ago

When? What scene? How long?

- henry

[–] oldbubblehead 8 years ago

Read Dorothy Lamour's autobiography, "My Side of the Road." She states that in 1933 she was in Chicago working at Marshall Fields department store and had not started her entertainment career. She also writes that she did not arrive in California until 1933. At that time she went under contract with Paramount and not Warner Brothers (the producers of Footlight Parade).