About Gale Storm: Gale was born in Texas on April 5, 1922; we lost her not long ago on June 27, 2009.

While still a high schooler in her Texas home town, Josephine Cottle won a "Gateway to Hollywood" contest sponsored by film producer Jesse Lasky. Cottle was rechristened "Gale Storm" at the suggestion of a movie magazine fan, and was promptly cast in "Tom Brown's School Days along about 1940.

Towards the end of the 1940s, Gale Storm appeared in a number of better but not great Republic westerns opposite Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. But when Wanda Hendrix turned down the opportunity to star in the upcoming TV sitcom "My Little Margie: in 1951, Gale Storm jumped at the opportunity. Gale didn't think much of the scripts at first, but was convinced that it could only get better. Whether or not "Margie" ever truly evinced signs of improvement is a moot point: Storm became a bonafide star in the role of spunky 21-year-old. My Little Margie lasted only two seasons on CBS, one season on NBC.

The series' popularity increased tenfold when it left prime time in 1954 and entered the syndicated-rerun market where, like Star Trek fifteen years later, would find a bigger audience on a string of independent television stations.

Capitalizing on her new-found celebrity, she pursued a successful nightclub career, and 1955-8, for Lawrence Welk's son-in-law Randy Wood's nefarious Dot record label, had three Top Ten record singles, "Teenage Prayer," "I Hear You Knocking." (covering Huey Smith's R&B original) and "Dark Moon." One year later, Gale launched a second successful TV series, "The Gale Storm Show: Oh, Susanna" in which, for four seasons, she filled the role of Susanna Pomeroy, scatterbrained social director on the luxury liner S.S. Ocean Queen. Zazu Pitts was her Vivian Vance-like co-star. Following her series' cancellation in 1960, Storm returned to nightclubs and played the straw-hat circuit in such musicals as "Annie Get Your Gun" and then went into semi-retirement, devoting her time to her husband Lee Bonnell (a fellow "Gateway to Hollywood" winner who had long since abandoned acting for the insurance business) and her children. In the late 1970s, Storm re-emerged in the public's consciousness when she announced that she'd been an alcoholic for several years; this was followed by a return to TV as spokesperson for a substance-abuse rehabilitation center in the Northwest. In 1981, Gale Storm published her biography,

About Charles Farrell Charles Farrell was born August 9, 1900 in Onset Bay, Massachusetts (some bios list his birth year as August 12 1901).

Farrell's first role in a major motion picture was a Centurion in the original 1929 Cecil B. DeMill/Max Sennett silent version of "The Ten Commandments" released by Paramount. Making numerous movies of general B run, Farrell became best known as the harried step-dad of gregarious, impulsive Margie. After "My Little Margie" was canned, CBS tried "The Charlie Farrell Show," no ratings grabber. Farrell made American International low budget horror flicks in the 70's before fading away from celebrity life. He died May 6, 1990 in Palm Springs, Florida.

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