Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 31

Chicago Tribune, Monday, April 19, 1976 Section 3 TempoPeople-Health Dorothy Lee: A collectors' item for film fans I 7.V A I Si i W. I v-v 1 .7 yrr, 'r-. -is's, 1 By Eleanor Page DOROTHY LEE I om Broadway and Hollywood tar who can sing "I Did It My Way" with authority. For the petite singer-dancer-actress, life worked- out Just the way she wanted. "I did what I wanted first show business, and then a family, because I knew when I had children I wanted to be with them.

I didn't want anyone else to raise my children, and "you can't do two things at once. Well, I suppose is being done, and successfully," she added tactfully. Dorothy Lee is the five-foot-tall dynamo who appeared with Bebe Daniels and Morton Downey in "the second or third talkie to be made." She was the first woman singer with a large band Fred Waring and His Pennsylvania "although some thought it was Mildred Bailey," Dottie says. And she appeared in about IS comedies with Bert Wheeler and Bob Woolsey before settling down with her fifth husband, the late John Bersbach, In Winnetka to rear four children. WONDERING WHO Wheeler and Woolsey were? JTiey were a couple of zanies as popular in their day as Bob Hope and Bing Crosby were in the "Road to series.

You can see them in a showing of "Hips Hips Hurray" after a dinner the Flicker Buffs, a group of old movie fans, will have April 27 at the Merchants and Manufacturers Club in the Merchandise Mart. Dorothy Lee, now Mrs. Charles J. Calderini, will be the special guest that night, an event which she entic pates with some trepidation. "I didn't think anybody ever would collect says Dottie, whose only entertainment activity lately has been "to teach Charlie's grandchildren how to tap dance in the kitchen." However, the Wheeler and Woolsey flicks are considered collectors' items, she explained as she picked at a bit of lunch-time tuna salad in her blue-walled Lake Shore Drive apartment.

BORN MARJORIE MiUsap in Los Angeles to a father who passed his bar exams at 16 in Iowa "he couldn't practice 'til he was 18" she got off to a precocious start in show business at 14. She accompanied an older family friend as his singing and dancing vauldeville act partner during the illness of his wife- "I tried out for things at the Saturday- matinees. But I sure didn't get away with a thing on that vaudeville tour. I couldn't go out of my hotel room except with my partner to dinner, and if a boy came to see me he sat across from us in the lobby." She was homesick when she got letters from school friends telling her about proms and parties, but Dottie or Marjorie, then asked herself, "Do I want to be on theitage or go home?" She made up for it later "when I made it big. I went to plenty of proms!" MEANWHILE, SHE was doing four shows a dy at 14.

"I was supposed to go back to school In the fall, but once I'd bad a taste of the stage I had no interest in school. I went to the Westlake School for Girls in Los Angeles, a snobby school. They were trying to make a lady out of me. No way!" So Marjorie changed her name to Dorothy Lee, got a job as a chorus girl with R.K.O. and was on her way.

"I had some nerve," she recalls, relating how she auditioned for a part in Fred Waring's Broadway show with no accompanist and no music to back up her singer and dancing. But she got the part. WARING ENCOURAGED ber to have a screen test for the Daniels-Downey movie. When she got that part she worked for the camera by day and with the Waring show at night. Waring was a great influence on her career, Dottie says.

"I couldn't sing, but he saw I had personality. Bert Wheeler saw me and wanted me for his partner in 'Rio Rita' he was so short." When she first worked with Wheeler, and Woolsey, Waring called every night and she rehearsed over the telephone with his pianist for the next day's filming. "We were so in but marriage wouldn't have worked out. We were both so positive. We couldn't be together two minutes without arguing.

We're still good friends." DOTTIE'S LIFE changed when she eloped to Crown Point, with A. G. Atwater in 1936. He tried to make her into a society girl. "In those days in the Wrigley family A.

sister married Philip K. Wrigley women didn't work. I was at the peak of my career, but A. G. wouldn't let me accept any job offers.

"I had always been able to be myself, to do what I wanted, to say what I thought. He wanted me to see older family friends, no one my age. After three Tired of going to a fancy girls' school, Marjorie Millsap changed her name to Dorothy Lee, got a job as a chorus girl for R. K. and was on her way.

-a" 1 years, the frustrated actress returned to California. THE LATE ERNIE Byfield- noted hotelier, then was a serious beau. "Thank goodness I turned him down," Dottie says, "for it was with him that I met John." She had been good friends with Bersbach's first wife, but had never met him. But one night "while waiting for Ernie in the bar in the Buttery at the Ambassador West Hotel, owned by Byfield, someone accidently bumped into me. It was John.

Ernie invited him to dinner with us, and that was that." John and Dottie were married in 1941. She gave up her career "to have babies, and stay at home with them. I never regretted it." AFTER BERSBACH died, she married the widowed Chicago lawyer who was a neighbor, and now rejoices in his-grandchildren and her five. "I'll be 68 in a couple of months," beams Dottie, "and I'll be able to ride the bus for 20 cents!" She's still projecting. 1 Tribune Photo by Earl Gustlt Dorothy Lee: "I gave up my career to have babies and stay home with them." partner.

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This is a diet under- medical supervision. It has the advantage of a complete fast in that after a few days you are not hungry. The modified-fast diet lets you burn only fat for energy. In a complete fast, your body burns off proteins from muscles and other vital organs. This can lead to serious health problems.

Blackburn knows his diet is severe. But he believes it is more likely to succeed because it does not tantalize with foods which can be abused. This is a major failing of most diets, in his view. Another is that they promise fast weight loss. "Overweight people have been sold this bill of goods for too long," he said.

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The more fat on your body, the more insulin your body must make, and the increase in insulin causes more fat to accumulate. Blackburn's insulin explanation also sheds light on the association between overweight and high blood pressure, heart attacks, and strokes. Overweight also precipitates diabetes in many people, says Blackburn. DIABETIC OR NOT, you can only break out of the vicious insulin cycle- of overweight by burning off your excess fat. Sri umtCbfllaMmm vs i leip yuu get into the ft 'Yr i Jf swing of things! If yoy're tired of standing, on the sidelines let Gloria Marshall A WORRIED 25-year-old secretary from Cincinnati writes: "I awakened two days ago, hopped out of bed, and looked at myself in the mirror.

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MRS. J. A. from Evanston writes: "My neighbor recently had her 85-year-old mother move in with her family. She looks like a sweet old dear, but she told me that she has always been a liar and a thief and never cared for anyone.

Why do you think she would brag a'jout such a past? Looks are deceiving and the woman may indeed be telling the truth. On the other hand, one of the symptoms of senility is telling tall tales, especially to embarrass family members. If I were you, I wouldn't pay much attention to these stories, but instead encourage the woman to remember some pleasant things from her past. You con both wwer you blood pressure and improve your general health by following Dr. Van Dellen's advice in his booklet on hypertension.

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