Virginia Dale

Virginia Dale
Publicity photo, c.1939
Born	Virginia Paxton 1916 or 1917 North Carolina, U.S.
Died	October 3, 1994(1994-10-03) (aged 77) Burbank, California, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Actress, dancer
Years active	1938–1958, 1982–1987

Virginia Dale (born Virginia Paxton; 1916 or 1917 – October 3, 1994) was an American actress and dancer.^[1]

Dale was born in North Carolina.^[2] She was the daughter of Lula Helms Paxton, and she graduated from Central High School in Charlotte.^[3]

Dale began learning toe dancing when she was 9 years old. When she was an adult, she recalled, "I slaved and slaved at it, hating every minute. I tried everything I could think of to get out of it."^[4] That exit occurred when blood poisoning in one of her feet required grafting lamb's skin over the top of the foot. The resulting reduction in the foot's ability to stretch ended her toe dancing.^[4]

When Dale was a teenager, Earl Carroll selected her as the winner of a beauty contest in Charlotte. That introduction to Carroll helped Dale and her sister, Frances, who danced as a team, to perform in New York City. Their engagements there included an eight-month stint at the Hollywood Restaurant. They also performed in other cities in the eastern United States.^[5] While they were in New York City, Dale was discovered by Darryl F. Zanuck who signed her to a contract with 20th Century Fox.^[1]

She appeared in a number of movies in the late 1930s and 1940s, including Holiday Inn (1942), in which she dances and sings with Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby,^[6] and she became particularly associated with musicals. In the 1950s, she worked mainly in television series such as The Adventures of Kit Carson (1951–1952), Highway Patrol (1957), and The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (1957–1958). She left the movie business in 1958, but returned to acting for a few films in the 1980s.

On Broadway, Dale performed in Him (1928) and The Final Balance (1928).^[7]

Dale died of complications of emphysema on October 3, 1994, in Burbank, California, aged 77.^[8]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Virginia Dale.

• Virginia Dale at IMDb
• Virginia Dale at the Internet Broadway Database
• Virginia Dale at Find a Grave

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