Penny Singleton

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Birthday:

15 September 1908, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Birth Name:

Mariana Dorothy Agnes Letitia McNulty

Her father was Irish Philadelphian newspaperman, Benny McNulty. He was related to Jim Farley Roosevelt's campaign managers and later Postmaster General. As a child, she sang songs at a silent movie theater. After the sixth grade she joined a touring vaudeville act called "The Kiddie Kabaret." Billed as Penny McNulty, she sang and danced with Milton Berle and Gene Raymond. Her first speaking part was in a Jack Benny Broadway show "Great Temptations".Moving to Hollywood, she took a new name after marrying dentist Lawrence Singleton. Her first name derived from having saved large amounts of penny coins. She played a tough nightclub dancer in After the Thin Man (1936) and acted/sang/danced in Swing Your Lady (1938), one of the movies Humphrey Bogart regarded as his worst. Though naturally a brunette, she bleached her hair blonde ever since she got the role of Blondie in that long-lived series. Show less «

Women are really leaders. A lot of them don't even know they are leaders. But they are.

"God bless Chic Young." - on playing Blondie in the series of films based on Young's comic-strip character.

"They threw parts at me that Claire Trevor didn't want" - on how she broke into the movies.

I was the economical Claire Trevor. I just didn't want to be typed. It goes to show you how you can eat your words. I became probably the mo...Show more »

I was the economical Claire Trevor. I just didn't want to be typed. It goes to show you how you can eat your words. I became probably the most typed actress in the world. But, at least it had some dignity. 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. Show less «