Judy Clark | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Clark in The Kid Sister (1945) | |
| Born | June 9, 1921 |
| Died | December 27, 2002 (aged 81) Alexandria, Virginia, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1942–1962 |
| Spouses | George Myers
(m. 1949; div. 1950)William Jerome Otto
(m. 1953; div. 1953) |
| Children | 1 |
Judy Clark (June 9, 1921 – December 27, 2002) was an American film and television actress and singer. Clark adopted a brash and energetic singing style, similar to that of musical-comedy star Betty Hutton (with trade critics almost always comparing the blonde Clark to the blonde Hutton).[citation needed]
Clark was the daughter of Jack Kaufman, who was a vaudeville performer.[1] She and comedian Jack Gilford were among the new faces in the stage show Meet the People; Universal Pictures signed both for the Gloria Jean musical Reckless Age (1944).
Clark won the juvenile lead in the 1944 Benny Fields musical Minstrel Man, in which she delivered two songs in the Hutton manner. The role reflected Clark's own life, as a rising star in a theatrical family. She continued to work in pictures through the mid-1940s, including the Joan Davis musical comedy Beautiful but Broke (1944), the Cinderella-styled comedy The Kid Sister (1945), the Freddie Stewart musical Junior Prom (1946), In Fast Company with The Bowery Boys (1946), and the Jean Porter musical Two Blondes and a Redhead (1947). Beginning in 1949, with fewer musicals being made, she worked in the action/adventure field, in two serials, Bruce Gentry and Desperadoes of the West. Altogether she appeared in more than two dozen films and several television productions.
Clark's work as a singer included performing with Jimmy McHugh's Hollywood Singing Stars.[2] She also danced and sang in the stage musical Lend an Ear at the Las Palmas Theater.[3]
Clark was diagnosed with anemia, resulting in pain in both ankles and thus forcing her to give up dancing.
On October 1, 1949, Clark married businessman George Myers in Los Angeles.[4] They were divorced on July 14, 1950.[5] In 1953 she married William Jerome Otto, 24-year-old heir to a drug chain; the union was unsuccessful and she sued for divorce nine months later, asking to be repaid $625 that he had borrowed.[6] In 1956 she met her future husband, Ron Zalimas, on the set of a Burns and Allen TV show. He was 15 years her junior,[7] but they remained married until her death in 2002.
