Alice Faye born 5 May 1917

Alice Faye (May 5, 1915 – May 9, 1998) was an American actress and singer. A musical star of 20th Century-Fox in the 1930s and 1940s, Faye starred in such films as On the Avenue (1937) and Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938). She is often associated with the Academy Award–winning standard "You'll Never Know", which she introduced in the 1943 musical film Hello, Frisco, Hello.

She left her career as a film actress and became known for her role on the radio show The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show. Alice Faye was born Alice Jeanne Leppert as the daughter of a New York City policeman and grew up in the Hell's Kitchen neighbourhood of Manhattan. Although some books list her birth date as 1912, she insisted she was born in 1915 but had lied about her age when she joined the Chester Hale vaudeville troupe at 13 after leaving school. 

After several years in the chorus, Alice Faye, still a teen-ager, got a job on Broadway in ''George White's Scandals of 1931,'' which starred Ethel Merman, Ray Bolger and Rudy Vallee. She sang ''Mimi'' at a cast party, and Mr. Vallee hired her as a singer on his radio show. When ''Scandals'' was made into the Fox film ''George White's Scandals of 1934,'' Ms. Faye replaced Lillian Harvey as Mr. Vallee's love interest. Mr. Vallee's wife sued for divorce, naming Ms. Faye as his love interest off screen as well. On completion of the film Rudy and the band returned to New York while Alice stayed having being given a 7 year contract by William Fox Studio, ( later to become 20th Century Fox.) 

                              

Within 5 years she was queen of the studio and headed the cast of every film she made. In 1939 she made 'Hollywood Cavalcade', (see trivia) her first in colour, which was partly a look back at the silent comedies which included a pie throwing sequence similar to Laurel and Hardy's Battle of the Century. 

She went on to star in Tinseltown's popular and lucrative cookie-cutter musicals. Her voice was inviting, and Irving Berlin once said he would choose Ms. Faye over any other singer to introduce his songs. In 1937, George Gershwin and Cole Porter called her the best female singer in Hollywood. In ''Rose of Washington Square,'' with tears in her eyes, Ms. Faye poured her love and faith in her no-good man into ''My Man.'' But the song with which she is most closely associated is the Academy Award-winning ballad ''You'll Never Know'' from ''Hello Frisco, Hello" in 1943. 

An early marriage to Tony Martin, a singer, ended in divorce after three years when Ms. Faye had become a star and Mr. Martin had not succeeded in the movies. In 1941 she married Hoosier Phil Harris in a union that produced two daughters. After filming Fallen Angel (1945) in 1945, in which she was very disappointed because many of her best scenes were cut, she walked out on her contract. Her life after Hollywood was charmingly simple. 

Alice had always said that her family always came before her professional life. She went back to Hollywood to make State Fair (1962) in 1962. Faye and Harris continued various projects, individually and together, for the rest of their lives. In 1974, Faye made a return to Broadway after 43 years in a revival of Good News, with her old Fox partner John Payne (who was replaced by Gene Nelson). Her last film was The Magic of Lassie (1978) in 1978 opposite James Stewart. Most of her films are big hits at revival theaters across the country, confirming the power she had in the wonderful performances she gave. Ironically, Alice was more popular in Britain than in the US. 

In 1984 Ms. Faye became a spokeswoman for Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, encouraging ''young elders'' to live a healthy life. In 1990, she was co-author of a book, ''Growing Older, Staying Young,'' with Dick Kleiner. Reminiscing about her years at Fox, Ms. Faye described the studio as a kind of penitentiary. ''So I decided to make a new life for myself,'' she said. ''A home life. I had been chauffeured to work, made up, dressed, given my meals and chauffeured back home. I thought, wouldn't it be wonderful to be independent. I equated independence with seeing daylight during the week and learning how to drive a car.'' 

The Faye-Harris marriage endured 54 years until Harris's death in 1995. Faye admitted in an interview that when she married Harris, most of the Hollywood elite had predicted the marriage would only last about six months. Three years after Phil Harris' death, Alice Faye died of stomach cancer at the Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, four days after her 83rd birthday on May 9, 1998. 

She was cremated and her ashes rest beside those of Phil Harris at the mausoleum of the Forest Lawn Cemetery (Cathedral City) near Palm Springs, California. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in recognition of her contribution to Motion Pictures at 6922 Hollywood Boulevard. In 1994, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars was dedicated to her. 

(Edited from IMDb, New York Times & Wikipedia)