Ella Logan
Ella Logan (March 6, 1913 – May 1, 1969) was a Scottish-born actress and singer, who appeared on Broadway, recorded and had a nightclub career in the United States and internationally.
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[edit] Early years
She was born as Georgina Allan in Glasgow,[1] where she was raised. She began performing under the name Ella Allan as a child.
[edit] Career
She went on to become a band singer in music halls. At the age of 17 in 1930, she made her debut in the West End of London in Darling! I Love You. She toured Europe in the early 1930s. Logan eventually emigrated to the U.S. and began to sing at various clubs and to record jazz on the British Columbia label (part of EMI).
She then appeared in several Hollywood films, including Flying Hostess (1936), 52nd Street (1937) and The Goldwyn Follies (1938). She appeared in several Broadway shows in the 1930s and early 1940s, but traveled to Europe and then Africa during World War II to entertain the troops. She also appeared on The Ed Wynn Show and The Colgate Comedy Hour in the 1940s and 1950s.
Logan returned to Broadway as Sharon McLonergan in the original production of Finian's Rainbow, singing the show's most famous song, How Are Things in Glocca Morra? but did not return to Broadway after that. In 1954, she was cast in a proposed animated film adaptation of Finian's Rainbow and re-recorded the score with Frank Sinatra, among others. But the film was canceled, and the recordings were not released until the 2002 box set Sinatra in Hollywood 1940-1964. She recorded the show's songs for a second time in 1954 for the LP Finian's Rainbow released by Capitol Records in 1955, the second of her two solo albums.
In the 1950s, she became an international nightclub performer, appearing at such venues as the Copacabana and the Waldorf-Astoria in New York as well as in London and Paris. She also appeared on television. In May 1956, she appeared in London with Louis Armstrong and His All-Stars. She continued to work occasionally in clubs, on television, and in theatrical stock productions, into the 1960s.
[edit] Family
She was married to Fred Finklehoffe, a playwright and producer, from 1942 until the marriage dissolved in either 1954 or 1956. They had no children. Her niece is the actress/chanteuse Annie Ross (born as Annabelle McCauley Allan Short) and her nephews were Jimmy Logan, a Scottish TV star, and Allan Kemble, a Comedy Unicycle entertainer who was an international headline attraction on the continent and in world cabaret and stage venues.
[edit] Death
Ella Logan died of cancer in Burlingame, California, aged 56.
[edit] References
[edit] Links
- 1913 births
- 1969 deaths
- American film actors
- American musical theatre actors
- American television actors
- People from Burlingame, California
- People from Glasgow
- Naturalized citizens of the United States
- American people of Scottish descent
- Scottish female singers
- Scottish emigrants to the United States
- Cancer deaths in California
