Lola Albright

Albright was born in Akron, Ohio, to Marion A. (née Harvey) and John Paul Albright, both of whom were gospel music singers. Lola's mother also was born in Ohio but her father was a native of North Dakota, who in 1930 supported the family by working as an inspector in a local insulating business.[1][2]

Albright attended King Grammar School and graduated from West High School in Akron in 1942.[3][4] She sang in public at a young age and studied piano for 20 years. Beginning when she was 15 years old, she worked after school as a receptionist at radio station WAKR in Akron.[5] She left WAKR at the age of 18 and moved to Cleveland, taking a job as a stenographer at WTAM radio. Her first radio performance came on WJW in Cleveland.[3] Moving to Chicago, she worked as a photographer's model and was discovered by a talent scout, which led to her moving to Hollywood at the age of 23.[6]

Albright made her motion picture debut with a small singing role in the 1947 musical comedy The Unfinished Dance and then appeared the following year in two Judy Garland movies: The Pirate and Easter Parade. She first gained studio and public notice in the 1949 film noir production Champion with her portrayal of the wife of a manipulative boxing manager; she falls for a prizefighter played by Kirk Douglas.[7] For the next several years, she appeared in secondary roles in over 20 films, including several B westerns. Among them was a co-starring role in the slapstick comedy The Good Humor Man in 1950 with future husband Jack Carson.

Some of the films in which Albright appeared were Tulsa (1949), starring Susan Hayward; The Silver Whip (1953), in which she played the love interest of Dale Robertson; and The Tender Trap (1955), in which she was one of several women trying to trap a bachelor, played by Frank Sinatra, into marriage.

In the early 1950s, Albright was also a frequent model for pinup painter Gil Elvgren.[8]

Unlike other film actors who were slow to begin acting in television, Albright was actively working in the medium from 1951. She appeared on the anthology series Lux Video Theatre in the episode "Inside Story".[3] Later she had a recurring role on The Bob Cummings Show in the 1950s and made guest appearances on television series such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Thin Man, Gunsmoke, Rawhide, Laredo, Burke's Law, The Dick Van Dyke Show, My Three Sons, The Beverly Hillbillies, Bonanza (two episodes), The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Medical Center, Kojak, Columbo, McMillan & Wife, Quincy, M.E., Starsky & Hutch, The Incredible Hulk and Branded.

In 1958, Albright was cast in Peter Gunn, the television detective series produced by Blake Edwards and scored by Henry Mancini. She played sultry Edie Hart, a nightclub singer and the romantic interest of Peter Gunn (Craig Stevens). "She was perfect casting for that role because she had an off-the-cuff kind of jazz delivery that was very hard to find," Mancini said in 1992. "Just enough to believe that she’d be singing in that club and that she shouldn’t be on Broadway or doing movies."[11] Over the course of 114 episodes produced for Peter Gunn, Albright sang in 38 of them, covering jazz classics such as "How High the Moon",[7] "A Good Man Is Hard to Find", "Easy Street", and "Day In, Day Out".

When actress Dorothy Malone had to undergo emergency surgery, Albright filled in for her as the character Constance MacKenzie on the prime-time soap opera Peyton Place. At the time, Albright called the role "one of the biggest challenges of my theatrical career."[12] She continued to perform in films and to make guest appearances on television until her retirement in 1984.[7]

Columbia Records signed Albright as a vocalist, leading to the release of her album Lola Wants You in 1957.[5][13] Albright's subsequent role on Peter Gunn and her performances singing on that series led directly to her second album Dreamsville (1959), which was arranged by Henry Mancini and featured his orchestra.[14] Albright is one of the few non movie-soundtrack singers for whom Mancini arranged.

In 1959, Albright was nominated for the Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actress (Continuing Character) in a Dramatic Series for her work on Peter Gunn.[15] In 1966, she won the Silver Bear for Best Actress award at the 16th Berlin International Film Festival for her role in Lord Love a Duck.[16]

Albright married and divorced three times, having no children of her own. Her first marriage, to Cleveland radio announcer Warren Dean, occurred in 1944. They divorced in 1949. Her second husband was actor Jack Carson (1951 to 1958). (Another source says that they married August 1, 1952, and divorced November 10, 1958.)[3] Her third marriage was to Bill Chadney (1961 to 1975), who played Emmett, the piano player on Peter Gunn. They married on May 19, 1961 and divorced in 1975.

Following her retirement from acting, Albright spent her remaining years living in Toluca Lake, California. In 2014, she fell and fractured her spine, an injury that contributed to a general decline in her health over the next three years.

On March 23, 2017, Albright died at her home of natural causes at the age of 92.[2][17]

Short subjects:

• The Soundman (1950)
• Screen Snapshots: Hollywood Cowboy Stars (1955)
• Filmmaking on the Riviera (1964)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lola Albright.

• Lola Albright at IMDb
• Lola Albright at the TCM Movie Database
• Lola Albright at AllMovie
• Profile with 1924 year of birth, familysearch.org; accessed November 25, 2014.
• Lola Albright, Aveleyman.com; accessed September 2, 2017.