In Remembrance: Penny Singleton

     Comic actress Penny Singleton, best known for creating the role of Blondie in Columbia Studio’s long running series adaptation of Chic Young’s comic strip, passed away on Wednesday, November 12, 2003. She was 95.

     Singleton was born Dorothy McNaulty in Philadelphia on September 15, 1908. As a child she sang in a silent movie theatre between features and joined the touring vaudeville act “The Kiddie Kabaret” after she completed sixth grade. She continued to perform on stage, eventually earning her first speaking role in Jack Benny’s Broadway show Great Temptations.

     Her first film role was in the 1930 musical Good News. Although billed eleventh, she was a featured performer in two numbers- “The Varsity Rag” and “Good News.” She followed this up with an appearance in Love In The Rough, but wouldn’t make another film until 1936’s After The Thin Man. After a couple of films for Republic Studios (Sea Racketeers (1937) and Outside Of Paradise (1938)), she signed with Warner Brothers where she would appear with Humphrey Bogart three times in 1938 in Swing Your Partner, Racket Busters, and Men Are Such Fools. She changed her screen name to Penny Singleton after she married her first husband, dentist Lawrence Singleton in 1937.

     Through 1938, Singleton found her roles at Warner Brothers getting smaller. Her luck would change when she was offered the lead role in Columbia’s adaptation of Chic Young’s popular “Blondie” comic strip. It was a role Singleton almost didn’t have. She was only brought onto the production at the last minute when the original actress cast, Shirley Deane, fell ill.

     With the exception of one film (1941’s Go West, Young Lady), the Blondie series would constitute the total of her film out put for the next twelve years. In the 1973 book Saturday Afternoon At The Bijou Singleton stated, “I’m proud and grateful I was Blondie. She was dumb and shrewish sometimes, but she was real and sympathetic and warm, a real woman, a human being. And that’s how I tried to play her.”

     It was at the signing of her contract with Columbia for the first Blondie movie that Singleton would create the concept of the “residual”- the contractual obligation that allows actors to be paid for repeated showings of any film or television work they do. Though television was barely a consideration at the time, Singleton insisted on being paid if the movies would ever be played outside of their initial theatrical runs.

     The series would prove popular with audiences and ran for a total of 28 installments. Paired with Arthur Lake as the bumbling Dagwood Bumstead, the two captured the look and feel of Young’s characters perfectly. Columbia also used the series as a testing ground for young talent. Featured in various installments were such future stars such as Rita Hayworth (Blondie On A Budget, 1940), Glenn Ford (Blondie Plays Cupid, 1940) and Lloyd Bridges (Blondie Goes To College, 1942).

     The Blondie series wound to a close with 1950’s Beware of Blondie. Singleton wouldn’t work again until 1962 when she was cast as the voice of futuristic family matriarch Jane Jetson in the cartoon series The Jetsons. Outside of a small role in 1964’s The Best Man featuring Henry Fonda and Cliff Robertson, the only other film work Singleton would appear in was the 1990 Jetsons theatrical film.

     Singleton spent most her time in the 1960s traveling the country performing in nightclubs and in touring companies of musicals. In the mid-60s she became involved in the American Guild of Variety Artists, eventually being elected Vice-President. Her first act as vice-president was to wrest control of the union back from the Mafia. She then led a strike of Radio City Music Hall performers for better working conditions. In 1969 she was elected president of the American Guild of Variety Artists, becoming the first woman president of an AFL-CIO union.