(LA Times) Shirley Bell Cole dies at 89; radio voice of 'Little Orphan Annie'
Matthew Kruk
latimes.com
OBITUARY
Shirley Bell Cole dies at 89; radio voice of 'Little Orphan Annie'
Bell was cast at 10 and stayed with the Ovaltine-sponsored program for
nearly a decade, portraying the young, plucky redhead who entertained
children around the country during the Great Depression.
By Trevor Jensen
5:24 PM PST, January 26, 2010
In the minds of boys and girls in the 1930s, Shirley Bell Cole was a
plucky little redhead engaged in thrilling adventures she punctuated
with exclamations like, "Leapin' lizards!"
In real life, she was a dark-haired girl from Chicago whose job playing
radio's "Little Orphan Annie" helped support a handful of families
struggling through the Depression.
She didn't even care much for Ovaltine, the show's sponsor.
But she was, in many ways, just as indomitable as the fictional heroine
to whom she gave her voice. Six days a week, she boarded a bus or
streetcar for the trip downtown to record two 15-minute segments.
Cole, 89, died of natural causes Jan. 12 in Arizona said her daughter,
Lori Cole.
"Little Orphan Annie" aired before radio ratings were established, but
the show's immense popularity could be measured by the success of the
promotional deals it advertised for Ovaltine.
When a Little Orphan Annie decoder could be had for the seals from two
jars of Ovaltine, hundreds of thousands of kids sucked down their malted
milk and sent in to claim one.
The show was produced by Ovaltine's advertising agency, which shielded
child actors from fan mail and other indications of their popularity,
said Chuck Schaden, the longtime host of old-time radio programs in
Chicago.
Years later, Cole was amazed at the attention she received at old-time
radio conventions and shows, Schaden said.
"She really was a radio icon," Schaden said.
Shirley Bell was born Feb. 21, 1920, on Chicago's South Side, but she
lived in a series of apartments through her childhood as her extended
family found ways to make ends meet, said Susan Cox, who collaborated
with Cole on a book about her radio memories.
She had a classic stage mother and was singing in the synagogue while
still a tot, Cox said. By age 6 Bell was on the radio, a medium still in
its infancy.
When the call went out for a girl to play Little Orphan Annie, the title
character of a popular comic strip by Harold Gray, hundreds of girls
auditioned. Bell gave a reading with an enthusiasm that embodied the
character and was immediately hired, Cox said.
For nearly 10 years, first on WGN-AM and then on the NBC network, Annie,
her adoptive father Daddy Warbucks, dog Sandy and good chum Joe
Corntassle entertained children gathered around the radio in the late
afternoon. (Floy Hughes and Janice Gilbert also had stints playing
Annie.)
Cole, who was 10 when she took the role, continued to play Annie even as
she moved through her teenage years, showing up for rehearsals and live
broadcasts after classes at Chicago's Lake View High School.
"My first vacation wasn't until 1940," she told the Chicago Tribune in
1979. "Eventually, I had to drop out of high school and finish with a
tutor."
Her paycheck was shared among several families. While she later said she
had fun with the people she worked with, she knew she missed out on a
lot of normal childhood activities.
"She looked back and said she really didn't have a childhood, and she
regretted that," Schaden said.
When "Little Orphan Annie" was replaced by "Captain Midnight" around
1940, Cole was essentially finished with radio.
She married Irwin Cole, a businessman, and raised three daughters in
suburban Glencoe, Ill. Every now and then, she pulled out the curly red
wig she wore for appearances as Annie, much to her children's amusement.
Cole's husband died in 1998. Her daughter declined to provide details on
surviving family members.
Copyright � 2010, The Los Angeles Times
Brad Ferguson
Kruk <nob...@home.com> wrote:
> She didn't even care much for Ovaltine, the show's sponsor.
God. Who did? Awful stuff.
Ovaltine also sponsored Captain Midnight. Early on during the run of
the short-lived TV series, Richard Webb (who played the Captain) asked
the old crab who ran Ovaltine for a couple of free cases of the
product, because the Captain was making an appearance at an orphanage.
Instead, the old crab gave Webb a note that read along the lines of
"Mr. Webb is hereby authorized to buy crates of Ovaltine from our
warehouse at wholesale cost." Well, that was it for Webb. From then
on, he refused to drink Ovaltine when he did the commercials. Webb
would hold a glass of it up and smile, and he would do the pitch and he
would *almost* drink some, but he would never follow through. It drove
the Ovaltine people crazy.
At one public appearance with thousands of kids, Webb as the Captain
greeted everybody with "What's your favorite chocolate drink?" and they
all shouted back "BOSCO!"
Matthew Kruk
news:270120100559535538%thir...@frXOXed.net...
> In article <jnP7n.2349$tq1....@en-nntp-03.dc1.easynews.com>, Matthew
> Kruk <nob...@home.com> wrote:
>
>> She didn't even care much for Ovaltine, the show's sponsor.
>
>
> God. Who did? Awful stuff.
I remember as a kid seeing the ads and nagging my parents for it ...
regretted it. Mom and dad made me drink all of it. bleah.