Gail Davis
Gail Davis (born Betty Jeanne Grayson; October 5, 1925 – March 15, 1997) was an American actress and singer, best known for her starring role as Annie Oakley in the 1950s television series Annie Oakley.[1]
Gail Davis
March 15, 1997 (aged 71)
Actress
- 1946–1961
- 1994
1
Life and career[edit]
Early years[edit]
The daughter of a small-town physician, Davis was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, but was raised in McGehee, Arkansas until her family moved to Little Rock.
She had been singing and dancing since childhood. After graduating from Little Rock High School, she studied at the Harcum Junior College for Girls in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, and then completed her education at the University of Texas at Austin.[2] She had a younger sister, Shirley Ann Grayson (August 26, 1937 – February 23, 1971).
Film[edit]
Betty Jeanne and her husband, Bob Davis, moved to Hollywood to pursue a film career. She told an interviewer how she acquired her professional acting name. "I went under contract to MGM around 1946. They told me 'we can't have a Betty Davis, because of Bette Davis, and we can't have a Betty Grayson because of Kathryn Grayson'.... Then a guy in the casting department said 'how about Gail Davis?' So that's where it came from."[3]
In 1947, she made her motion picture debut in a comedy short film. She then appeared in minor roles in another four films, the first being The Romance of Rosy Ridge,[4] then landed a supporting role to that of star Roy Rogers in the 1948 The Far Frontier. From 1948 to 53, Davis appeared in 32 feature films,[4] all but three of which were in the Western genre. Twenty of the Western films were with Gene Autry, produced by his company, Gene Autry Productions, released and distributed by Columbia Pictures,
Family[edit]
While at the University of Texas at Austin in 1945, she met and married her first husband, Bob Davis, with whom she had a daughter, Terrie. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1952.[4] During her tenure on Annie Oakley, she had an affair with Gene Autry.[12] On June 25, 1959, she married Richard Pierce, a recording executive, in Las Vegas, Nevada.[13]
Death[edit]
Davis, then a widow, died of cancer in Los Angeles at age 71. She is interred there in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills.[14]