Variety Girl
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
George Marshall
Mary Hatcher
Olga San Juan
Deforest Kelley
Frank Ferguson
Glen Tryon
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
In the nursery of a hospital that is funded by Variety Clubs International, Barbara Stanwyck explains to Joan Caulfield how the Variety Club charities were founded: Eighteen years earlier, in 1928, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a baby girl was left in the Sheridan movie theater with a note from her parents calling on the generosity of those in the film business to take care of her. An usher places the infant in the care of members of the Variety Club, a group of eleven local showmen who meet once a week. The men decide to sponsor the child and put her up for adoption as Catherine Variety Sheridan. Eighteen years later, only four people know who Catherine is: The Browns, who are her adoptive parents, J. R. O'Connell, who runs Hollywood's Paramount studio, and Bill Farris, head of Paramount's New York office. Catherine, who is now a talented singer performing under the name Amber La Vonne, contacts Farris, and he asks O'Connell to set up a screen test for her. A scarcity of rooms at the Hollywood Girls Club causes a gutsy, but talentless unknown blonde actress to impersonate Amber in order to steal her room. When Catherine arrives, the actress befriends her, but insists on keeping her stage name. After "Amber" pulls off a stunt in the Brown Derby restaurant and shamelessly calls attention to herself, Paramount talent scout Bob Kirby arrives to pick up Catherine, but mistakenly leaves with "Amber." "Amber" is then given Catherine's screen test. Later, believing "Amber" is Catherine, O'Connell invites her to a party at his home. At O'Connell's, "Amber" pretends to be a temperamental starlet and demands that Kirby let Catherine sing at the party. Despite the antics of Spike Jones and his orchestra, who have been ordered by Kirby to disrupt her performance, Catherine proves that she can sing. Before she can ingratiate herself with O'Connell, however, Catherine inadvertently pushes him into his pool, sending him into a rage. Later, on the set of a Cecil B. DeMille film, Catherine again soaks O'Connell. To punish "Amber" for foisting herself and Catherine on him, O'Connell orders William Bendix to purposefully humiliate her during her screen test by recreating over and over the James Cagney-Mae Clarke grapefruit scene in the film Public Enemy . "Amber" becomes so angry that she pushes the grapefruit into Bendix's face and throws a tantrum. At Farris's suggestion, O'Connell asks "Amber" to sing at the Variety Club's show, and Kirby arranges it so that Catherine's voice will be dubbed in. Because Catherine has, in the meantime, soaked O'Connell for a third time, she arrives dressed as a cigarette girl and hides under a table to sing. "Amber" allows Catherine to receive her own applause, however, and O'Connell is about to have Catherine thrown out, when Farris tells him who she is. The Variety Club's show then ends with performances by an all-star cast, including Bob Hope and Bing Crosby impersonating Siamese twins.
Director
George Marshall
Cast
Mary Hatcher
Olga San Juan
Deforest Kelley
Frank Ferguson
Glen Tryon
Nella Walker
Torben Meyer
Jack Norton
Elaine Riley
Charles Victor
Gus Taute
Harry Hayden
Bing Crosby
Bob Hope
Gary Cooper
Ray Milland
Alan Ladd
Barbara Stanwyck
Paulette Goddard
Dorothy Lamour
Sonny Tufts
William Holden
Joan Caulfield
Lizabeth Scott
Burt Lancaster
Gail Russell
Diana Lynn
Sterling Hayden
Robert Preston
Veronica Lake
John Lund
William Bendix
Barry Fitzgerald
Howard Da Silva
Macdonald Carey
Cass Daley
Patric Knowles
Billy De Wolfe
Mona Freeman
William Demarest
Cecil Kellaway
Virginia Field
Richard Webb
Frank Faylen
Cecil B. Demille
Mitchell Leisen
Frank Butler
George Marshall
Pearl Bailey
Spike Jones
Jim Mulcay
Mildred Mulcay
Roger Dann
Russ Saunders
Ted Dewayne
William Snyder
Fay Alexander
Ray Saunders
Audrey Saunders
Janet Thomas
Roberta Jonay
Sally Rawlinson
Jac Lucas Fisher
Wallace Earl
Dick Keene
Ann Doran
Jerry James
Eric Alden
Frank Mayo
Pinto Colvig
Edgar Dearing
Ralph Dunn
Lucille Barkley
Catherine Craig
Carolyn Butler
Russell Hicks
Crane Whitley
Charles Coleman
Hal K. Dawson
Eddie Fetherston
Len Hendry
Lorin L. Raker
Jack Overman
Sammy Stein
Russ Clark
Paul Lees
Joey Ray
Hal Rand
Douglas Regan
Warren Joslin
Robert Williams
John Stanley
Joel Friend
Al Ruiz
Pat Templeton
Larry Badagaliacca
Bob Alden
Pat Moran
Lee Emery
Marilyn Gray
Renee Randall
Jesse Graves
Mildred Boyd
Willa Pearl Curtis
Don Barksdale
Duke Johnson
Michael Harvey
Alma Macrorie
Albert Pollet
Raymond Largay
Barney Dean
Mary Edwards
Virginia Welles
Nanette Parks
Wanda Hendrix
Andra Verne
Patricia White
June Harris
Rae Patterson
Mikhail Rasumny
George Reeves
Arleen Whelan
Johnny Coy
Crew
Waldo Angelo
Monte Brice
Johnny Burke
Robert Clatworthy
Sam Comer
John Cope
William Cottrell
Billy Daniels
Daniel Dare
Ross Dowd
Hans Dreier
Farciot Edouart
Doris Fisher
Edmund Hartmann
Edith Head
Thornton Hee
Gordon Jennings
Joseph J. Lilley
Lionel Lindon
Frank Loesser
Gene Merritt
Jim Mulcay
Mildred Mulcay
Dorothy O'hara
Original Dixieland Jazz Band
George Pal
Bernard Pearce
Edward Plumb
Edward Plumb
Allan Roberts
Troy Sanders
Leroy Stone
Frank Tashlin
George Templeton
Stuart Thompson
Van Cleave
James Van Heusen
Robert Welch
Wally Westmore
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The film's opening states: "This film is dedicated to Variety Clubs International, the heart of show business, which beats constantly in behalf of the under-privileged children of the world...Regardless of race, creed or color." Narration within the film explains that, as of 1947, Variety Clubs International operates and maintains twenty-five hospitals, has seven thousand members world-wide, and has spent twelve million dollars on the welfare of underprivileged children. The film ends with the following statement: "...and as a result of the adoption of an abandoned baby in 1928 by eleven showmen...two and a half million underprivileged children have benefitted through the philanthropic activities of Variety Clubs in their nurseries, hospitals, research laboratories and boys' ranches throughout the world."
As noted in Hollywood Reporter, Paramount paid $50,000 to the Variety Clubs of America for the rights to the film's story. Jim and Mildred Mulcay are billed in the opening cast credits as "The Mulcays, Jim [and] Mildred." Paramount stars appear as themselves unless otherwise noted in the cast list. Singer Pearl Bailey made her feature film debut in the picture. Mary Hatcher, who made her screen debut in the picture, was eighteen-years-old when she appeared in the film. On September 4, 1947, a special premiere of the film took place in her home town of Tampa, Florida. A benefit premiere in Los Angeles on October 8, 1947 raised $28,000 for the construction of an East Los Angeles Boys Club. According to Par News, thirty benefit premieres for the film were held in key American cities that had Variety Clubs.
Miscellaneous Notes
Released in United States on Video February 1999
Released in United States Summer August 27, 1947
Gary Cooper makes a cameo appearance. William Holden made a guest appearance. George Marshall also makes a guest appearance.
Released in United States on Video February 1999
Released in United States Summer August 27, 1947
