Rosemary DeCamp was an American radio, film and television actress.

DeCamp first came to fame in November 1937, when she took the role of Judy Price, the secretary of Dr. Christian in the long-running radio series of the same name. She made her film debut in Cheers for Miss Bishop

Cheers for Miss Bishop

Cheers for Miss Bishop is a film based on the novel Miss Bishop by Bess Streeter Aldrich. It was directed by Tay Garnett and stars Martha Scott in the title role. The other cast members include William Gargan, Edmund Gwenn, Sterling Holloway, Dorothy Peterson, Marsha Hunt, Don Douglas, and Sidney...

and appeared in many Warner Bros.

Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...

 films, including Eyes in the Night

Eyes in the Night

Eyes in the Night is a 1942 American mystery film directed by Fred Zinnemann based on Baynard Kendrick's 1941 novel The Odor of Violets .- Plot summary :...

, Yankee Doodle Dandy

Yankee Doodle Dandy

Yankee Doodle Dandy is a 1942 American biographical musical film about George M. Cohan, known as "The Man Who Owns Broadway". It stars James Cagney, Joan Leslie, Walter Huston, and Richard Whorf, and features Irene Manning, George Tobias, Rosemary DeCamp and Jeanne Cagney.The movie was written by...

playing Nellie Cohan opposite James Cagney

James Cagney

James Francis Cagney, Jr. was an American actor, first on stage, then in film, where he had his greatest impact. Although he won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of performances, he is best remembered for playing "tough guys." In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him eighth...

, This Is The Army

This Is the Army

This Is the Army is a 1943 American wartime motion picture produced by Hal B. Wallis and Jack L. Warner, and directed by Michael Curtiz, and a wartime musical designed to boost morale in the U.S. during World War II, directed by Sgt. Ezra Stone...

playing the wife of George Murphy

George Murphy

George Lloyd Murphy was an American dancer, actor, and politician.-Life and career:He was born in New Haven, Connecticut of Irish Catholic extraction, the son of Michael Charles "Mike" Murphy, athletic trainer and coach, and Nora Long. He was educated at Peddie School, Trinity-Pawling School, and...

 and the mother of Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

, Rhapsody in Blue

Rhapsody in Blue (film)

Rhapsody in Blue is a 1945 fictionalized screen biography of the American composer and musician George Gershwin . Starring Robert Alda as Gershwin, the film features a few of Gershwin's acquaintances playing themselves...

and Nora Prentiss

Nora Prentiss

Nora Prentiss is a 1947 black-and-white drama film. It is shot in the film noir style. The film, considered by some to be a "woman's noir", was directed by Vincent Sherman, who bought the story for $2500 ,. Sherman also directed leading lady Ann Sheridan in another 1947 film noir, The Unfaithful...

. She played the mother of the character played by Sabu Dastagir

Sabu Dastagir

Sabu Dastagir was a film actor of Indian origin—although he later took American citizenship. He was normally credited only by his first name, Sabu, and is primarily known for his work in film during the 1930s-40s in Britain and America.-Early life:Born in 1924 in Karapur, Mysore, Kingdom of...

 in Jungle Book

Jungle Book (1942 film)

Jungle Book is a 1942 American color action-adventure film based on the Rudyard Kipling book, The Jungle Book. The film was directed by Zoltán Korda based on a screenplay adaptation by Laurence Stallings. The cinematography was by Lee Garmes and W. Howard Greene and music by Miklós Rózsa...

.

DeCamp played Peg Riley in the first television version of The Life of Riley

The Life of Riley

The Life of Riley, with William Bendix in the title role, is a popular American radio situation comedy series of the 1940s that was adapted into a 1949 feature film, a long-run 1950s television series , and a 1958 Dell comic book...

opposite Jackie Gleason

Jackie Gleason

Jackie Gleason was an American comedian, actor and musician. He was known for his brash visual and verbal comedy style, especially by his character Ralph Kramden on The Honeymooners, a situation-comedy television series. His most noted film roles were as Minnesota Fats in the drama film The...

 in the 1949-1950 season, then reprised the role on radio with original star William Bendix

William Bendix

William Bendix was an American film, radio, and television actor, best remembered in movies for the title role in the movie The Babe Ruth Story and for portraying clumsily earnest aircraft plant worker Chester A. Riley in radio and television's The Life of Riley...

 for an episode of Lux Radio Theater

Lux Radio Theater

Lux Radio Theater, a long-run classic radio anthology series, was broadcast on the NBC Blue Network ; CBS and NBC . Initially, the series adapted Broadway plays during its first two seasons before it began adapting films. These hour-long radio programs were performed live before studio audiences...

in 1950. From 1955-1959 she was a regular on the popular 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...

 television comedy The Bob Cummings Show

The Bob Cummings Show

The Bob Cummings Show is an American sitcom starring Robert "Bob" Cummings which was produced from January 2, 1955 to September 15, 1959, and originally sponsored by R.J. Reynolds' Winston cigarettes...

, playing Margaret MacDonald, widowed sister of Cummings's character, the womanizing photographer and former World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 pilot Bob Collins; Dwayne Hickman

Dwayne Hickman

Dwayne Bernard Hickman is a former American actor and television executive at CBS.He is known primarily for his "teenage" actor roles on television sitcoms. The naturally brown-headed Hickman is best known for playing Chuck MacDonald, Bob Collins's crazy teenaged nephew, on the popular 1950s...

 (the future star of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis

The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis

The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis is an American sitcom that aired on CBS from 1959 to 1963. The series and some episode scripts were adapted from a 1951 collection of short stories of the same name, written by Max Shulman, that also inspired the 1953 film The Affairs of Dobie Gillis with Debbie...

) portrayed her son, Chuck. DeCamp had a recurring role as Helen Marie, the mother of Marlo Thomas

Marlo Thomas

Margaret Julia “Marlo” Thomas is an American actress, producer, and social activist known for her starring role on the TV series That Girl . She also serves as National Outreach Director for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital...

 on That Girl

That Girl

That Girl is an American television situation comedy that ran on ABC from 1966 to 1971. It stars Marlo Thomas as the title character, Ann Marie, an aspiring actress, who had moved from her hometown of Brewster, New York to make it big in New York City...

, from 1966-1971 on ABC

American Broadcasting Company

The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

. She also appeared in several episodes of the CBS

CBS

CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

 sitcom Petticoat Junction

Petticoat Junction

Petticoat Junction is an American situation comedy produced by Filmways which originally aired on CBS from 1963 to 1970. The series is one of three interrelated shows about rural characters created by Paul Henning; the others are The Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres.The setting for the series...

as Kate Bradley's sister, Helen, filling in as a temporary replacement for the ailing Bea Benaderet

Bea Benaderet

Bea Benaderet was an American actress born in New York City and raised in San Francisco, California. She is best remembered for her wide variety of television work, which included a starring role in the 1960s television series Petticoat Junction and Green Acres as Shady Rest Hotel owner Kate...

 as the mother figure to Bradley's three daughters.

In 1962, she appeared as a dishonest Southern

Southern United States

The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...

 belle in the NBC sitcom Ensign O'Toole

Ensign O'Toole

Ensign O'Toole is a military comedy that aired on NBC from September 23, 1962, to May 5, 1963, with 31-year-old Dean Jones in the title role of a nonchalant Navy ensign during the early 1960s. Jones, born in 1931 in Alabama and a Navy veteran of the Korean War, played an officer aboard the...

with Dean Jones

Dean Jones (actor)

Dean Carroll Jones is an American actor. Jones is best known for his light-hearted leading roles in several Walt Disney movies between 1965 and 1977, most notably The Love Bug.-Early years:...

. She appeared in the role of Gertrude Komack in the episode entitled "A Little Anger is a Good Thing" on ABC's medical drama

Medical drama

A medical drama is a television program, in which events center upon a hospital, an ambulance staff, or any medical environment.In the United States, most medical episodes are one hour long and, more often than not, are set in a hospital. Most current medical Dramatic programming go beyond the...

 Breaking Point.

Viewers in the 1960s also knew her from her many appearances in commercials for the laundry product 20 Mule Team Borax.

She also played the faithful nurse on the Dr. Christian radio show, starring Jean Hersholt

Jean Hersholt

Jean Pierre Hersholt was a Danish-born actor who lived in the United States, where he was a leading film and radio talent, best known for his 17 years starring on radio in Dr. Christian and for playing Shirley Temple's grandfather in Heidi...

, and she played Buck Rogers' mother in flashback scenes of the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (TV series)

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century is an American science fiction adventure television series produced by Universal Studios. The series ran for two seasons between 1979–1981, and the feature-length pilot episode for the series was released as a theatrical film several months before the series aired....

episode "The Guardians".

On 7 July 1946, her Beverly Hills

Beverly Hills, California

Beverly Hills is an affluent city located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. With a population of 34,109 at the 2010 census, up from 33,784 as of the 2000 census, it is home to numerous Hollywood celebrities. Beverly Hills and the neighboring city of West Hollywood are together...

 home was damaged when a wing hit it after the experimental XF-11 piloted by Howard Hughes

Howard Hughes

Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. was an American business magnate, investor, aviator, engineer, film producer, director, and philanthropist. He was one of the wealthiest people in the world...

 (re-created in the 2004 movie, The Aviator) crashed nearby. A piece of the wing and a part of the neighbor's roof landed in DeCamp's bedroom, where she and her husband were sleeping, with no injuries.

Outliving most of her contemporaries, DeCamp died of pneumonia

Pneumonia

Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...

in 2001. She was 90 years of age. She had four daughters: Margaret, Martha, Valerie and Nita.

External links

• Bio on DeCamp : dead link