Rosemary DeCamp (November 14, 1910 – February 20, 2001) was an American radio, film and television actress.
Life and career
DeCamp was the older of two children born to William Valentine and Margaret Elizabeth (née Hinman) DeCamp, both natives of Iowa. She was 14 years older than her brother Jerry (1924-1995).
DeCamp first came to fame in November 1937, when she took the role of Judy Price, the secretary/nurse of Dr. Christian in the long-running radio series of the same name. She made her film debut in Cheers for Miss Bishop and appeared in many Warner Bros.films, including Eyes in the Night, Yankee Doodle Dandy playing Nellie Cohan opposite James Cagney, This Is The Army playing the wife of George Murphy and the mother of Ronald Reagan, Rhapsody in Blue and Nora Prentiss. She played the mother of the character played by Sabu Dastagir in Jungle Book.
Bob Cummings as Rosemary DeCamp in
Bob Cummings Show (1959)
In 1951 and 1953, respectively, she starred in the nostalgic musical films On Moonlight Bay and its sequel, By The Light Of The Silvery Moon, as Alice Winfield, Doris Day's mother, opposite Leon Ames.
DeCamp played Peg Riley in the first television version of The Life of Riley opposite Jackie Gleasonin the 1949–1950 season, then reprised the role on radio with original star William Bendix for an episode of Lux Radio Theater in 1950. From 1955–1959 she was a regular on the popular NBCtelevision comedy The Bob Cummings Show, playing Margaret MacDonald, widowed sister of Cummings's character, the womanizing photographer and former World War II pilot Bob Collins;Dwayne Hickman (the future star of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis) portrayed her son, Chuck. DeCamp had a recurring role as Helen Marie, the mother of Marlo Thomas on That Girl, from 1966-1971 on ABC. She appeared in several episodes of the CBS sitcom Petticoat Junction as Kate Bradley's sister, Helen, filling in as a temporary replacement for the ailing Bea Benaderet as the mother figure to Bradley's three daughters.
She appeared in the 1961 Rawhide episode, "Incident Near Gloomy River". In 1962, she appeared as a dishonest Southern belle in the NBC sitcom Ensign O'Toole with Dean Jones. She appeared in the role of Gertrude Komack on ABC's medical drama Breaking Point in the episode entitled "A Little Anger is a Good Thing". She also played The Fairy Godmother in the 1980s TV show, "The Memoirs of a Fairy Godmother".
Viewers in the 1960s also knew her from her many appearances in commercials for the laundry product 20 Mule Team Borax.
She played Buck Rogers' mother in flashback scenes of the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century episode "The Guardians" (1981).
On 7 July 1946, her Beverly Hills home was damaged when it was hit by a wing after the experimental XF-11 piloted by Howard Hughes (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.
DeCamp was married to Inglewood Municipal Judge John Ashton Shidler from 1941 until his death in 1998. The Shidlers raised four daughters: Margaret, Martha, Valerie and Nita. Outliving most of her contemporaries, DeCamp died of pneumonia in 2001. She was 90 years of age.
Source: Wikipedia