Dagmar
Encyclopedia
Dagmar was an American
actress, model
and television personality of the 1950s. As a statuesque, busty blonde, she became the first major female star of television, receiving much press coverage during that decade.
Born in Yawkey, West Virginia
as Virginia Ruth Egnor, she went to high school in Huntington, West Virginia
where she was known as Ruthie. She attended Huntington Business School and worked at Walgreens
as a cashier
, waitress, sandwich
maker and soda jerk
.
. She adopted Jennie Lewis as her stage name (taken from her real life married name, Virginia Lewis). To keep busy, she became a fashion photographer's model, and in 1944, other models encouraged her to audition for comedians Ole Olsen
and Chic Johnson
. Although she had no show business experience, she was cast in their Broadway musical revue, Laffing Room Only, a Shubert production at the Winter Garden Theatre. With Olsen and Johnson, she performed in four sketches from December 23, 1944 to July 14, 1945.
As a chorus girl named Bubbles, she appeared with Bert Lahr
in the Broadway comedy Burlesque, which ran for 439 performances from December 25, 1946 until January 10, 1948. The play was set in the basement dressing-room of a midwest burlesque theater, a New York hotel suite, and a theater in Paterson, New Jersey
.
's first late-night show Broadway Open House
(1950–52), he renamed her Dagmar. Lester devised the name as a satirical reference following the huge success on television of the TV series Mama
(1949–57), in which the younger sister, Dagmar Hansen, was portrayed by Robin Morgan
. As Dagmar, Lewis was instructed to wear a low-cut gown, sit on a stool and play the role of a stereotypical dumb blonde. With tight sweaters displaying her curvy 5' 8" figure (measuring 42"-23"-39"), her dim-bulb character was an immediate success, soon attracting much more attention than Lester. Lewis quickly showed that regardless of appearances she was quite bright and quick-witted. She appeared in sketches, and Lester made occasional jokes about her "hidden talents." Her appearances created a sensation, leading to much press coverage and a salary increase from $75 to $1,250. With Dagmar getting all the attention, Lester walked off his own show in May 1951, and Dagmar carried on as host. On July 16, 1951, she was featured on the front cover of Life
, and the show came to an end one month later.
Dagmar became one of the leading personalities of early 1950s live television, doing sketch comedy on Milton Berle
's Texaco Star Theater
, The Bob Hope Show
and other shows. On June 17, 1951, she appeared on the Colgate Comedy Hour with host Eddie Cantor
and guests Milton Berle
, Phil Foster
and Jack Leonard. In 1951, she made a TV guest appearance with Frank Sinatra
, which prompted Columbia Records
producer Mitch Miller
to record a novelty duet with Frank and Dagmar, "Mama Will Bark
". That same year, she was featured in a Life
cover story with Alfred Eisenstaedt
's photo of her on the July 16, 1951 issue. For the interior photo essay, Life photographers followed her to rehearsals and accompanied her on a vacation back to her home town in West Virginia.
In 1952, she hosted the short-lived, prime time Dagmar's Canteen, in which she sang, danced, interviewed servicemen and performed comedy routines. The basic premise of the show was that servicemen from the audience were given roles to act alongside Dagmar in sketches. One of Dagmar's sisters, Jean, was a member of the cast of Dagmar's Canteen. Jean, who had previously worked as a chorus girl on Broadway, also served as Dagmar's secretary, handling her sister's fan mail, which sometimes soared to 8000 letters a month. When her television show ended, Dagmar performed in Las Vegas
shows and summer stock theater. Liberace
spoke glowingly of her in an interview, stating that she had given him his big break as her accompanist early in his career. In the 1950s, Dagmar was a regular panelist on the NBC
game show
, Who Said That?
, along with H. V. Kaltenborn, Deems Taylor
, Frank Conniff
, Peggy Ann Garner
, and Boris Karloff
. She occasionally made guest appearances on such shows as What's My Line?
, The Mike Wallace Interview
and Masquerade Party
(disguised as John L. Lewis
) and during the 1960s she appeared on Hollywood Squares
, The Mike Douglas Show
and other shows.
In 1980, Dagmar was referenced in the controversial Canadian Top 20 hit High School Confidential by the popular 1980s Canadian new wave band Rough Trade. In 2005, "High School Confidential" was named the 38th greatest Canadian song of all time on the CBC Radio One series 50 Tracks: The Canadian Version.
novel First Lady, published in 1965, as the soubrette
and Presidential courtesan
Gladys Goldfoil.
through much of the 1950s, followed by a marriage to bandleader Dick Hinds (1957). After years on the nightclub circuit, she moved to Ceredo, West Virginia
in June 1996 to be near her family. In her last years, she lived with her brother, Bob Egnor, and his wife. Dagmar died in Ceredo, West Virginia on October 9, 2001 of undisclosed causes. She was survived by three sisters, three brothers, an aunt and numerous nieces and nephews.
is a chrome bullet-point bulge on the front bumpers of Cadillac
s, Buick
s and Packard
s built during the 1950s. During the Korean War, a 40 mm self-propelled anti-aircraft tank was named Dagmar's Twin 40s. In the 1950s and 1960s, a blonde female midget wrestler worked as Darling Dagmar, playing off her more statuesque inspiration.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
actress, model
Model (person)
A model , sometimes called a mannequin, is a person who is employed to display, advertise and promote commercial products or to serve as a subject of works of art....
and television personality of the 1950s. As a statuesque, busty blonde, she became the first major female star of television, receiving much press coverage during that decade.
Born in Yawkey, West Virginia
Yawkey, West Virginia
Yawkey is an unincorporated community in eastern Lincoln County, West Virginia, United States. It lies at the intersection of West Virginia Routes 3 and 214, east of the town of Hamlin, the county seat of Lincoln County. Its elevation is 738 feet . Although it is unincorporated, it has a...
as Virginia Ruth Egnor, she went to high school in Huntington, West Virginia
Huntington, West Virginia
Huntington is a city in Cabell and Wayne counties in the U.S. state of West Virginia, along the Ohio River. Most of the city is in Cabell County, for which it is the county seat. A small portion of the city, mainly the neighborhood of Westmoreland, is in Wayne County. Its population was 49,138 at...
where she was known as Ruthie. She attended Huntington Business School and worked at Walgreens
Walgreens
Walgreen Co. , doing business as Walgreens , is the largest drugstore chain in the United States of America. As of August 31st, the company operates 8,210 locations across all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Founded in Chicago, Illinois in 1901, and has since expanded...
as a cashier
Cashier
Cashier is an occupation focused on the handling of cash money.- Retail :In a shop, a cashier is a person who scans the goods through a machine called a cash register that the consumer wishes to purchase at the retail store. After all of the goods have been scanned, the cashier then collects...
, waitress, sandwich
Sandwich
A sandwich is a food item, typically consisting of two or more slices of :bread with one or more fillings between them, or one slice of bread with a topping or toppings, commonly called an open sandwich. Sandwiches are a widely popular type of lunch food, typically taken to work or school, or...
maker and soda jerk
Soda jerk
A soda jerk was a person — typically a youth — who operated the soda fountain in a drugstore, often for the purpose of preparing and serving ice cream soda. This was made by putting flavored syrup into a specially designed tall glass, adding carbonated water and, finally, one or two scoops of ice...
.
Broadway bound
After her marriage to Angelo Lewis in 1941, she moved to New York where he was a Naval officer, stationed at Navy Ferry Command on Long IslandLong Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
. She adopted Jennie Lewis as her stage name (taken from her real life married name, Virginia Lewis). To keep busy, she became a fashion photographer's model, and in 1944, other models encouraged her to audition for comedians Ole Olsen
Ole Olsen (comedian)
John Sigvard "Ole" Olsen was an American vaudevillian and comedian.Born in Peru, Indiana, he graduated from Northwestern University in 1912 with a degree in music and hit the Vaudeville circuit...
and Chic Johnson
Chic Johnson
Chic Johnson was the barrel-chested half of the Swedish-American comedy team of Olsen and Johnson, known for his strangely infectious, high-pitched laugh.-Background:...
. Although she had no show business experience, she was cast in their Broadway musical revue, Laffing Room Only, a Shubert production at the Winter Garden Theatre. With Olsen and Johnson, she performed in four sketches from December 23, 1944 to July 14, 1945.
As a chorus girl named Bubbles, she appeared with Bert Lahr
Bert Lahr
Bert Lahr was an American actor and comedian. Lahr is remembered today for his roles as the Cowardly Lion and Kansas farmworker Zeke in The Wizard of Oz, but was also well-known for work in burlesque, vaudeville, and on Broadway.-Early life:Lahr was born in New York City, of German-Jewish heritage...
in the Broadway comedy Burlesque, which ran for 439 performances from December 25, 1946 until January 10, 1948. The play was set in the basement dressing-room of a midwest burlesque theater, a New York hotel suite, and a theater in Paterson, New Jersey
Paterson, New Jersey
Paterson is a city serving as the county seat of Passaic County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, its population was 146,199, rendering it New Jersey's third largest city and one of the largest cities in the New York City Metropolitan Area, despite a decrease of 3,023...
.
Television
In 1950, when Lewis was hired by Jerry Lester for NBCNBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
's first late-night show Broadway Open House
Broadway Open House
Broadway Open House, network television's first late-night comedy-variety series, was telecast live on NBC from May 29, 1950 to August 24, 1951, airing weeknights from 11pm to midnight...
(1950–52), he renamed her Dagmar. Lester devised the name as a satirical reference following the huge success on television of the TV series Mama
Mama (TV series)
Mama is a weekly Maxwell House-sponsored CBS television comedy-drama series which ran from July 1, 1949 until March 17, 1957.Based on the Kathryn Forbes memoir Mama's Bank Account, which was also adapted for the 1944 John Van Druten play and subsequent 1948 film I Remember Mama, it told the...
(1949–57), in which the younger sister, Dagmar Hansen, was portrayed by Robin Morgan
Robin Morgan
Robin Morgan is a former child actor turned American radical feminist activist, writer, poet, and editor of Sisterhood is Powerful and Ms. Magazine....
. As Dagmar, Lewis was instructed to wear a low-cut gown, sit on a stool and play the role of a stereotypical dumb blonde. With tight sweaters displaying her curvy 5' 8" figure (measuring 42"-23"-39"), her dim-bulb character was an immediate success, soon attracting much more attention than Lester. Lewis quickly showed that regardless of appearances she was quite bright and quick-witted. She appeared in sketches, and Lester made occasional jokes about her "hidden talents." Her appearances created a sensation, leading to much press coverage and a salary increase from $75 to $1,250. With Dagmar getting all the attention, Lester walked off his own show in May 1951, and Dagmar carried on as host. On July 16, 1951, she was featured on the front cover of Life
Life (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....
, and the show came to an end one month later.
Dagmar became one of the leading personalities of early 1950s live television, doing sketch comedy on Milton Berle
Milton Berle
Milton Berlinger , better known as Milton Berle, was an American comedian and actor. As the manic host of NBC's Texaco Star Theater , in 1948 he was the first major star of U.S. television and as such became known as Uncle Miltie and Mr...
's Texaco Star Theater
Texaco Star Theater
Texaco Star Theater is an American comedy-variety show, broadcast on radio from 1938 to 1949 and telecast from 1948 to 1956. It was one of the first successful examples of American television broadcasting, remembered as the show that gave Milton Berle the nickname "Mr...
, The Bob Hope Show
Bob Hope
Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...
and other shows. On June 17, 1951, she appeared on the Colgate Comedy Hour with host Eddie Cantor
Eddie Cantor
Eddie Cantor was an American "illustrated song" performer, comedian, dancer, singer, actor and songwriter...
and guests Milton Berle
Milton Berle
Milton Berlinger , better known as Milton Berle, was an American comedian and actor. As the manic host of NBC's Texaco Star Theater , in 1948 he was the first major star of U.S. television and as such became known as Uncle Miltie and Mr...
, Phil Foster
Phil Foster
Phil Foster was an American actor and performer. He is best known for playing Frank De Fazio on the television sitcom Laverne & Shirley.- Biography :...
and Jack Leonard. In 1951, she made a TV guest appearance with Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
, which prompted Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
producer Mitch Miller
Mitch Miller
Mitchell William "Mitch" Miller was an American musician, singer, conductor, record producer, A&R man and record company executive...
to record a novelty duet with Frank and Dagmar, "Mama Will Bark
Mama Will Bark
"Mama Will Bark" is a novelty song written by Dick Manning and recorded as a duet between Frank Sinatra and Dagmar in 1951.When buxom hostess Dagmar appeared on Sinatra's CBS-TV show on April 7, 1951, Columbia Records A&R head Mitch Miller became intrigued by the comic chemistry he perceived...
". That same year, she was featured in a Life
Life (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....
cover story with Alfred Eisenstaedt
Alfred Eisenstaedt
Alfred Eisenstaedt was a German-American photographer and photojournalist. He is renowned for his candid photographs, frequently made using various models of a 35mm Leica rangefinder camera...
's photo of her on the July 16, 1951 issue. For the interior photo essay, Life photographers followed her to rehearsals and accompanied her on a vacation back to her home town in West Virginia.
In 1952, she hosted the short-lived, prime time Dagmar's Canteen, in which she sang, danced, interviewed servicemen and performed comedy routines. The basic premise of the show was that servicemen from the audience were given roles to act alongside Dagmar in sketches. One of Dagmar's sisters, Jean, was a member of the cast of Dagmar's Canteen. Jean, who had previously worked as a chorus girl on Broadway, also served as Dagmar's secretary, handling her sister's fan mail, which sometimes soared to 8000 letters a month. When her television show ended, Dagmar performed in Las Vegas
Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...
shows and summer stock theater. Liberace
Liberace
Wladziu Valentino Liberace , best known simply as Liberace, was a famous American pianist and vocalist.In a career that spanned four decades of concerts, recordings, motion pictures, television and endorsements, Liberace became world-renowned...
spoke glowingly of her in an interview, stating that she had given him his big break as her accompanist early in his career. In the 1950s, Dagmar was a regular panelist on the NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
game show
Game show
A game show is a type of radio or television program in which members of the public, television personalities or celebrities, sometimes as part of a team, play a game which involves answering questions or solving puzzles usually for money and/or prizes...
, Who Said That?
Who Said That?
Who Said That? is a 1947-55 NBC radio-television game show, in which a panel of celebrities attempts to determine the speaker of a quotation from recent news reports. The series was first proposed and edited by Fred W. Friendly, later of CBS News....
, along with H. V. Kaltenborn, Deems Taylor
Deems Taylor
Joseph Deems Taylor was a U.S. composer, music critic, and promoter of classical music.-Career:Taylor initially planned to become an architect; however, despite minimal musical training he soon took to music composition. The result was a series of works for orchestra and/or voices...
, Frank Conniff
Frank Conniff (journalist)
Frank Conniff was an American journalist and editor who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1956.Conniff was born in Danbury, Connecticut. He worked for Hearst Newspapers and was editor of the World Journal Tribune of New York from 1966 to 1967 when the newspaper ceased publication...
, Peggy Ann Garner
Peggy Ann Garner
Peggy Ann Garner was an American actress.A successful child actor, Garner played her first film role in 1938 and won the Academy Juvenile Award for her work in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn...
, and Boris Karloff
Boris Karloff
William Henry Pratt , better known by his stage name Boris Karloff, was an English actor.Karloff is best remembered for his roles in horror films and his portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein , Bride of Frankenstein , and Son of Frankenstein...
. She occasionally made guest appearances on such shows as What's My Line?
What's My Line?
What's My Line? is a panel game show which originally ran in the United States on the CBS Television Network from 1950 to 1967, with several international versions and subsequent U.S. revivals. The game tasked celebrity panelists with questioning contestants in order to determine their occupations....
, The Mike Wallace Interview
The Mike Wallace Interview
The Mike Wallace Interview is a series of 30-minute television interviews conducted by host Mike Wallace in 1957-60. Before The Mike Wallace Interview was televised nationally on prime-time in 1957, the host of the show had risen to prominence a year earlier with Night-Beat, a television interview...
and Masquerade Party
Masquerade Party
A syndicated revival was produced by Stefan Hatos and Monty Hall in 1974, hosted by Richard Dawson and announced by Jay Stewart. The basic premise was the same as the original show. Bill Bixby, Lee Meriweather, and Nipsey Russell were regular panelists. Col. Harland Sanders of Kentucky Fried...
(disguised as John L. Lewis
John L. Lewis
John Llewellyn Lewis was an American leader of organized labor who served as president of the United Mine Workers of America from 1920 to 1960...
) and during the 1960s she appeared on Hollywood Squares
Hollywood Squares
Hollywood Squares is an American panel game show in which two contestants play tic-tac-toe to win cash and prizes. The "board" for the game is a 3 × 3 vertical stack of open-faced cubes, each occupied by a celebrity seated at a desk and facing the contestants...
, The Mike Douglas Show
The Mike Douglas Show
The Mike Douglas Show is an American daytime television talk show hosted by Mike Douglas that aired in syndication from 1961 to 1982, distributed by Westinghouse Broadcasting and for much of its run, originated from studios of two of the company's TV stations.The program featured light banter with...
and other shows.
In 1980, Dagmar was referenced in the controversial Canadian Top 20 hit High School Confidential by the popular 1980s Canadian new wave band Rough Trade. In 2005, "High School Confidential" was named the 38th greatest Canadian song of all time on the CBC Radio One series 50 Tracks: The Canadian Version.
Books
She was one of a number of performers who posed for pictures in the Patrick DennisPatrick Dennis
Patrick Dennis was an American author. His novel Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade was one of the bestselling American books of the 20th century. In chronological vignettes "Patrick" recalls his adventures growing up under the wing of his madcap aunt, Mame Dennis...
novel First Lady, published in 1965, as the soubrette
Soubrette
A soubrette is a female stock character in opera and theatre. The term arrived in English from Provençal via French, and means "conceited" or "coy".-Theater:...
and Presidential courtesan
Courtesan
A courtesan was originally a female courtier, which means a person who attends the court of a monarch or other powerful person.In feudal society, the court was the centre of government as well as the residence of the monarch, and social and political life were often completely mixed together...
Gladys Goldfoil.
Personal life
After her marriage to Angelo Lewis, she was married to actor Danny DaytonDanny Dayton
Danny Dayton was an American actor and television director. Beginning in the 1950s, he played many roles in film and on TV...
through much of the 1950s, followed by a marriage to bandleader Dick Hinds (1957). After years on the nightclub circuit, she moved to Ceredo, West Virginia
Ceredo, West Virginia
Ceredo is a city in Wayne County, West Virginia, along the Ohio River. The population was 1,675 at the 2000 census. Ceredo is a part of the Huntington-Ashland, WV-KY-OH, Metropolitan Statistical Area . As of the 2000 census, the MSA had a population of 288,649.The city is also near the location of...
in June 1996 to be near her family. In her last years, she lived with her brother, Bob Egnor, and his wife. Dagmar died in Ceredo, West Virginia on October 9, 2001 of undisclosed causes. She was survived by three sisters, three brothers, an aunt and numerous nieces and nephews.
Cultural legacy
The Dagmar bumperDagmar bumpers
Dagmar bumpers, also known simply as Dagmars , is a slang term for the artillery shell shaped styling elements found on the front bumper/grille assemblies on several makes of cars produced in the 1950s, an era recognized for its flamboyant designs and prominent use of chrome details.The term was...
is a chrome bullet-point bulge on the front bumpers of Cadillac
Cadillac
Cadillac is an American luxury vehicle marque owned by General Motors . Cadillac vehicles are sold in over 50 countries and territories, but mostly in North America. Cadillac is currently the second oldest American automobile manufacturer behind fellow GM marque Buick and is among the oldest...
s, Buick
Buick
Buick is a premium brand of General Motors . Buick models are sold in the United States, Canada, Mexico, China, Taiwan, and Israel, with China being its largest market. Buick holds the distinction as the oldest active American make...
s and Packard
Packard
Packard was an American luxury-type automobile marque built by the Packard Motor Car Company of Detroit, Michigan, and later by the Studebaker-Packard Corporation of South Bend, Indiana...
s built during the 1950s. During the Korean War, a 40 mm self-propelled anti-aircraft tank was named Dagmar's Twin 40s. In the 1950s and 1960s, a blonde female midget wrestler worked as Darling Dagmar, playing off her more statuesque inspiration.
External links
- Huntington Quarterly 35 (1999): "The Delightful Dagmar" (full text)
- Dagmar interviewed by Mike WallaceMike Wallace (journalist)Myron Leon "Mike" Wallace is an American journalist, former game show host, actor and media personality. During his 60+ year career, he has interviewed a wide range of prominent newsmakers....
on The Mike Wallace Interview (August 11, 1957)