Betty Gale Robbins, known professionally as Gale Robbins, was a talented singer and actress born on May 7, 1921, in Chicago, Illinois, or possibly Mitchell, Indiana, to Arthur E. and Blanche Robbins. She was the eldest of five daughters and attended Jennings Seminary at Aurora, Illinois, and Flower Tech, where she developed her natural flair for music and participated in glee clubs and church choirs.
After graduating from high school in 1939, Robbins began her career as a model for the Vera Jones Modeling School in Chicago. However, her singing talents soon took over, and she was signed by a talent agency, singing with Phil Levant's outfit in 1940 and later teaming up with male singers for a swing band called "The Duchess and Her Dukes."
Robbins went on to work with top radio and live 'big bands' of the era, including the Jan Garber and Hal Kemp orchestras, and her best showcase was working for Art Jarrett in 1941 when he took over Kemp's band. 20th Century-Fox caught sight of Robbins while she was singing for Ben Bernie's outfit and was quickly signed up, making her film debut in the pleasant time-filler "In the Meantime, Darling" (1944).
Robbins became a semi-popular cheesecake pin-up, appearing on the cover of "Yank, The Army Weekly" in 1944, and was heard on radio and toured with Bob Hope in Europe the next year. Her post-war parts, mostly sultry second leads, were typically lightweight in nature, and she was often lent out to other studios and not always in a singing mode.
Gale's better-known film work includes "Race Street" (1948),"The Barkleys of Broadway" (1949),"Three Little Words" (1950),"The Fuller Brush Girl" (1950),and "Calamity Jane" (1953). She also hosted "The Hollywood House" (1949) and appeared on "The Colgate Comedy Hour" (1950) in 1951.
In the late 1950s, the gal with the smooth and sexy vocal style released an easy-listening album ("I'm a Dreamer") for the Vik Label, backed by Eddie Cano & His Orchestra, covering standards such as "Them There Eyes" and "What Is This Thing Called Love."
After her final film appearance in "Quantrill's Raiders" (1958) and a few additional TV parts on such programs as "Bourbon Street Beat," "77 Sunset Strip," "The Untouchables," "Perry Mason," and "Mister Ed," Robbins phased out her career to focus full-time on raising her family.
Married to her high school sweetheart Robert Olson in November 1943, while he was serving in the Air Force, her husband turned to construction engineering as a career and they had two children. After her 47-year-old husband was tragically killed on February 4, 1967, in a building accident, a distraught Robbins left the States for a time with her two daughters and decided to make a transatlantic comeback of sorts, appearing in nightclubs in Japan and the Orient.
She later was glimpsed in the film "Stand Up and Be Counted" (1972) and appeared on stage in Stephen Sondheim's musical "Company" in 1975. Robbins also made ends meet as an interior decorator. Gale Robbins died of lung cancer in February 1980 and was interred at Forest Lawn Cemetery.
