Mary Lee (actor)
| Mary Lee | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Mary Lee Wooters October 24, 1924 Centralia, Illinois, U.S. |
| Died | June 6, 1996 (aged 71) Sacramento, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | big band singer, film actress |
| Spouse(s) | Harry J. Banan (1943-1990) |
Mary Lee (born October 24, 1924, Centralia, Illinois – died June 6, 1996, Sacramento, California) was a big band singer and B movie actress from the late 1930s into the 1940s, starring mostly in Westerns. Mary Lee did not make any screen appearances after 1944.
Born Mary Lee Wooters in Centralia, Illinois on October 24, 1924, her mother and father were Lela Myrtle Telford (1898) and Louis Ellis Wooters (1897). They had four daughters, Vera Mae (1920), Dorris Lucille (1923), Mary Lee (1924), and Norma Jean (1929). Dorris Lucille died shortly after birth in 1923. When Mary Lee was four years old the family moved to Ottawa, Illinois, where Louis Wooters opened a barbershop. At age six, Mary Lee began singing with her father and older sister, Vera, who were already performing country and popular songs over a low power radio station and at various events in the LaSalle County, Illinois area.
In mid-June 1938, Mary Lee joined the Ted Weems Orchestra, traveling with the group four months a year, accompanied by either her mother or her older sister as companion and teacher. She recorded five sides with the Weems band including "Back to Smokey Mountain", a duet with Elmo Tanner from an October 5, 1939 session, issued as Decca 2829-B. In the summer of 1942, Mary Lee recorded eight tracks in two sessions with Bob Crosby's Bob Cats, reissued in Australia on Swaggie CD 504 as Bob Crosby's Bob Cats - Volume Four 1941-1942.
Decades later a review of Varèse Sarabande CD VSD-5910 / Gene Autry With His Little Darlin' Mary Lee in the trade publication Billboard described Mary Lee as a "clear-voiced, expressive singer", noting that she was "heralded as Republic's answer to MGM's Judy Garland." The CD, released in 1998, is a compilation of songs from Mary Lee's appearances in Gene Autry films including "Give Out With a Song" from Gaucho Serenade (10 May 1940) and "Sing A Song Of Laughter" from Ridin' on a Rainbow (24 June 1941).
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