Helen O'Connell born 23 May 1920

Helen O'Connell (May 23, 1920 – September 9, 1993) was an American singer, actress, and hostess, described as "the quintessential big band singer of the 1940s".

Born in Lima, Ohio, O'Connell grew up in Toledo, Ohio. By the time she was 15, she and her older sister, Alice, were singing duets in clubs and hotels and on radio stations in Toledo. O'Connell sang with minor bands like Jimmy Richards and Arthur Wylie, but launched her career as a big-band singer with Larry Funk and his Band of a Thousand Melodies. She was singing with Funk's band in Greenwich Village when Jimmy Dorsey's manager discovered her. She joined the Dorsey band in 1939 and in 1940 she came top in a Metronome poll and was named Best Female Vocalist of 1940. Downbeat readers went one better and voted her Best Female Singer of 1940 and 1941.

Helen with Jimmy Dorsey & His Orchestra

Although primarily a solo singer (her 1942 recording of Brazil with the band was added to the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2009) she is probably best remembered for the string of Latin-flavoured duets she did with the band’s boy singer Bob Eberly (older brother of Ray, who worked for Glenn Miller) – Time Was, Green Eyes, Amapola, Tangerine, Yours – all of which followed what proved a winning formula.

Helen with Bob Eberly

Eberly would croon a chorus in ballad-time then O’Connell and the band would up the tempo and swing it, the result being solid hits for all concerned. While still with the band O’Connell appeared in two prestigious Hollywood movies, Paramount’s The Fleet’s In (later remade as G I Blues with Elvis Presley) and MGM’s I Dood It. If the latter yielded the standard Star Eyes, by Gene DePaul and Don Raye, the former boasted the finer all-round score, with I Remember You, Tangerine, Not Mine, The Fleet’s In and Arthur Murray Taught Me Dancing In A Hurry with lyrics by Johnny Mercer and music by Victor Schertzinger who also directed but sadly died shortly after completing the film.

                                  

Although O'Connell retired from show business upon her first marriage in 1943, she did return briefly to play herself in the 1947 biopic The Fabulous Dorseys, purportedly a true account of Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey that fit where it touched. When her marriage ended in 1951, she resumed her career, achieving some chart success and making regular appearances on radio and television. O'Connell sang duets with Bing Crosby, Johnny Mercer, and Dean Martin. In 1953, O'Connell and Bob Eberly headlined TV's Top Tunes, a summer replacement program for Perry Como's CBS television show. The program also featured Ray Anthony and his orchestra. 

Stan Freberg, Helen and Bobby Troup

In March 1955 O'Connell visited Australia as a support act on the landmark tour headlined by singer Johnnie Ray, which set a new box office record for Australia that stood until the 1964 visit by The Beatles (and during which local media also reported that O'Connell was romantically linked with Ray). O'Connell also was the featured singer on The Russ Morgan Show on CBS TV in 1956. In 1957, she had her own 15-minute program, The Helen O'Connell Show, twice a week on NBC. She was one of the first "girls" on NBC's The Today Show, commenting at the time: "I wasn't hired as a singer, I was hired as a talker, a pleasant switch." She had that role from 1956 to 1958. In 1961, she co-hosted the Desilu-NBC program Here's Hollywood, conducting interviews with celebrities, often in their own homes. 

Helen in 1965

It was during the 1960s she was an accomplished performer on the night-club circuit, where a stint at the Copacabana in 1964 attracted a “money” review from the New York Times. During 1964 she had a brief marriage to the actor Bob Paris, which was annulled in 1965. On August 8, that year, the Los Angeles Police Department found O'Connell unconscious in her car. United Press International reported: "Police said they found 12 capsule sleeping pills in the car." She was transported to Hollywood Receiving Hospital, where her stomach was pumped.

O'Connell co-hosted the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants with Bob Barker from 1972 to 1980 and was nominated for an Emmy Award in 1976 for her coverage of the Miss Universe pageant. . She also sang the National Anthem for Super Bowl XV in 1981. O'Connell's 1942 recording of "Brazil" with the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra was a 2009 addition to the Grammy Hall of Fame. In 1977, O'Connell was invited to join the "4 Girls 4" show comprising Rosemary Clooney, Margaret Whiting and Rose Marie. The format was that each member performed solo for 30 minutes and finally they all joined up together to sing as a group for about ten minutes. The act was very successful for several years and toured all over the USA. Whiting and Rose Marie left the group and were replaced by Martha Raye and Kay Starr with the show being renamed The New 4 Girls. The group finally disbanded in 1989.

In 1992, O'Connell was featured along with The Andrews Sisters and Kay Starr in the KCET special Those Fabulous 40s. Her final performance was at the Valley Forge Music Festival in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, on August 14, 1993.

O'Connell was married to wealthy playboy Clifford Smith, Jr., from 1941 to 1951, and novelist Tom T. Chamales from 1957 to 1960, and had four daughters. Her third and final marriage was in 1991, to arranger-conductor-composer Frank De Vol. She died of cancer on September 9, 1993, in a  San Diego hospice, California. Her funeral was held at St. Paul's Catholic Church in Westwood, California, where she was a member.

(Edited from Wikipedia, Jazz Journal & IMDb)