From today’s L.A. Times (cut down, of course):
Irene Manning, an elegantly beautiful blond lyric soprano best known for her roles in the 1940s film musicals “Yankee Doodle Dandy” and “The Desert Song,” has died. She was 91. At Warner Bros., Manning most notably played a supporting role in “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” the 1942 musical-drama starring James Cagney as the legendary George M. Cohan. Manning sang three songs in the film: “Mary’s a Grand Old Name,” “45 Minutes From Broadway” and “So Long, Mary.” She also appeared opposite Dennis Morgan in “The Desert Song,” a 1943 musical based on the Sigmund Romberg operetta; co-starred with Humphrey Bogart in the 1942 crime-drama “The Big Shot”; and appeared in “Shine On, Harvest Moon,” a 1944 musical starring Morgan and Ann Sheridan. Manning, who appeared as herself in the 1944 film “Hollywood Canteen,” toured the United States and England with her own four-woman USO unit during the war. While in England, she recorded four songs in German, including “Begin the Beguine” and “Mary’s a Grand Old Name,” with Glenn Miller’s Army Air Forces Band. She made her London stage debut in the musical “The Dubarry” in 1947, followed by a tour of English music halls in a variety act, as well as appearing in a couple of other stage productions. She also hosted her own BBC television show, “An American in England,” in 1951. Her fourth husband, Maxwell W. Hunter II, was one of the world’s leading rocket designers and space engineers, who helped design Nike, Thor and other missiles during the Cold War. He died in 2001, after 37 years of marriage. “This man did so much,” Manning told The Times after her husband’s death. “I only made people happy being a movie star, but he changed the world.”
Trudy Marshall, a former New York photographers’ model who starred with Laurel and Hardy in the 1943 film “Dancing Masters” and appeared in a number of other films in the 1940s, died May 23 in her Century City home. She was 84. Marshall, the mother of actress Deborah Raffin, had roles in about 30 films, including playing one of the Sullivan sisters in “The Sullivans” (1944) and appearing with John Payne and Maureen O’Hara in “Sentimental Journey” (1946) and Red Skelton in “The Fuller Brush Man” (1948). She also had a small role in the 1975 film “Once Is Not Enough,” in which her daughter was featured.
