48 Facts About Dinah Shore

Dinah Shore rose to prominence as a recording artist during the Big Band era.

Dinah Shore achieved even greater success a decade later in television, mainly as the host of a series of variety programs for the Chevrolet automobile company.

Dinah Shore became the first singer of her era to achieve huge solo success.

Dinah Shore had a string of eighty charted popular hits, spanning from 1940 to 1957, and after appearing in a handful of feature films, she went on to a four-decade career in American television.

Dinah Shore starred in her own music and variety shows from 1951 through 1963 and hosted two talk shows in the 1970s.

Stylistically, Dinah Shore was compared to two singers who followed her in the mid-to-late 1940s and early 1950s, Jo Stafford and Patti Page.

Frances "Fanny" Rose Dinah Shore was born on February 29,1916, to Russian-Jewish immigrant shopkeepers, Anna and Solomon Dinah Shore, in Winchester, Tennessee.

Dinah Shore had an elder sister, eight years her senior, Elizabeth, known as "Bessie".

Dinah Shore recovered, but sustained a deformed foot and limp.

In 1924, the Dinah Shore family moved to McMinnville, Tennessee, where her father had opened a department store.

When Dinah Shore was 16, her mother died unexpectedly from a heart attack.

Dinah Shore graduated from the university in 1938 with a degree in sociology.

Dinah Shore visited the Grand Ole Opry and made her radio debut on Nashville's WSM radio station.

Dinah Shore decided to return to pursuing her career in singing, moving to New York City to audition for orchestras and radio stations.

Dinah Shore eventually was hired as a vocalist at radio station WNEW, where she sang with Frank Sinatra.

Dinah Shore recorded and performed with the Xavier Cugat orchestra, and signed a recording contract with RCA Victor Records in 1940.

In March 1939, Dinah Shore debuted on national radio on the Sunday-afternoon CBS Radio program, Ben Bernie's Orchestra.

Dinah Shore signed her as a regular on his radio show, Time to Smile, in 1940.

In 1943, Dinah Shore appeared in her first movie, Thank Your Lucky Stars, starring Cantor.

Dinah Shore soon went to another radio show, Paul Whiteman Presents.

Dinah Shore continued appearing in radio shows throughout the 1940s, including The Bird's Eye Open House and Ford Radio Show.

Dinah Shore soon became a successful singing star with her own radio show, Call for Music, which was broadcast on CBS from February 13,1948, to April 16,1948, and on NBC from April 20,1948, to June 29,1948.

Dinah Shore was a regular with Jack Smith on his quarter-hour radio show on CBS.

Dinah Shore was a musical guest in the films Thank Your Lucky Stars, Follow the Boys, and Till the Clouds Roll By and had starring roles in Danny Kaye's debut Up in Arms and Belle of the Yukon.

Dinah Shore lent her musical voice to two Disney films: Make Mine Music and Fun and Fancy Free.

Dinah Shore's last starring film role was for Paramount Pictures in Aaron Slick from Punkin Crick.

In 1950, Dinah Shore returned to RCA Victor with a deal to record 100 sides for $1 million.

Dinah Shore remained at RCA Victor until 1958, and during that time, released albums including Bouquet of Blues, Once in a While, and Vivacious, which were collections of singles with different orchestras and conductors such as Frank DeVol and Hugo Winterhalter.

The studio albums Holding Hands at Midnight, from 1955, and Moments Like These, from 1958, recorded in stereo, with orchestra under the musical direction of Harry Zimmerman, who performed the same duties on The Dinah Shore Chevy Show, were the exceptions.

Dinah Shore was dropped by Capitol in 1962 and recorded only a handful of albums over the next two decades.

Dinah Shore starred in seven radio series of her own between 1941 and 1954.

Dinah Shore made hundreds of guest appearances in shows including an episode of Suspense.

In 1956, Dinah Shore began hosting a monthly series of one-hour, full-color spectaculars as part of NBC's The Chevy Show series.

Simply called The Dinah Shore Show, Shore's guests included Nat "King" Cole, Bing Crosby, Jack Lemmon, Boris Karloff, Betty Hutton, Art Carney, and a young Barbra Streisand.

Over twelve seasons, from 1951 to 1963, Dinah Shore made 125 hour-long programs and 444 fifteen-minute shows.

Dinah Shore appeared on the Norman Lear comedy-soap opera Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman in April 1976.

Comedian Andy Kaufman in his Tony Clifton guise appeared on her show but did not, as rumored, throw eggs at Dinah Shore or pour them on her head.

Dinah Shore guest-starred on Pee-wee's Playhouse Christmas Special, calling Pee-wee on his picturephone and singing "The 12 Days of Christmas".

Dinah Shore won nine Emmys, a Peabody Award, and a Golden Globe Award.

Dinah Shore was married to actor George Montgomery from 1943 to 1962.

Dinah Shore gave birth to daughter Melissa Ann "Missy" Montgomery, in January 1948.

Black-and-white kinescopes, as well as color videotapes of The Dinah Shore Chevy Show, are frequently aired on Jewish Life Television.

Dinah Shore, who played golf, was a longtime supporter of women's professional golf.

Mission Hills' Dinah Shore Course is currently host of the Galleri Classic, a 78-man, 54-hole no-cut tournament on the PGA Tour Champions for players over 50.

Dinah Shore was the first female member of the Hillcrest Country Club in Los Angeles.

Dinah Shore became a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame when it absorbed the LPGA Hall in 1998.

Dinah Shore received the 1993 Old Tom Morris Award from the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America, GCSAA's highest honor.

Dinah Shore died of complications from the disease at her home in Beverly Hills, California, on February 24,1994.