So 111 years ago, Tully Joyce Hearn was born on June 30, 1914, in Victoria on Vancouver Island in Canada.
At age 3, she and her older sister Patricia lost their pregnant mother and unborn sibling to the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic and because their father was an international traveling businessman, they were raised by their maternal grandparents.
The family relocated to Los Angeles, California… Joyce was a smart cookie and skipped third grade. After graduating from Los Angeles High, she was unable to go to college due to the depression so she joined the workforce.
She met my dad, Gordon Palmer, on a blind date. They married and eventally moved to Burbank, California with their three daughters where she used her many talents on local volunteering.
Her favorire pass time was spent reading and I remember going often to the library with her. She used a large straw bag to carry the many books back-and-forth.
Our mom was smart, fun, witty and full of love and in honor of her, here are a few short gems she taught me when I was a little squirt…
Q. How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
A. A woodchuck wood chuck all the wood he could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.
Betty Botter bought a bit of butter, but she said, this butter’s bitter and if I put this bitter butter in my batter, it will make my batter bitter but if I buy some better butter and put it in my batter, it will make my bitter batter better.
Q. What kind of a noise annoys an oyster?
A. A noisy noise annoys an oyster.
(song) Be kind to your web footed friends
For a duck may be somebody’s mother Who lives all alone in the swamp
Where the weather is cold and damp. Now you may think this is the end.
A painting by Bernard Gribble of the Pilgrim fathers boarding the Mayflower in 1620 for their voyage to America. Photograph: Print Collector/Getty Images
As a descendant of John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley through their oldest child daughter, Desire, I've become very interested in the Mayflower Pilgrims.
The following videos give a very clear presentation of the events back then.
Today after posting some photos on Facebook of my dad as a Grip at Paramount, a Hollywood Historian found the following which I had never seen before... so cool!
Parents: John Brodel (1883-1967) and Agnes O'Hearn Brodel (1888-1949)
We just received word
from family that Elizabeth "Betty" Ann Brodel Franzalia passed away
early Sunday morning, March 3, 2024, peacefully, at age 104. She lived
an amazingly wonderful life and will be greatly missed by many.
May God bless and comfort all her loved ones we pray
Elizabeth (Betty) Ann Brodel Franzalia, my first cousin once removed and older sister to actress, Joan Leslie, along with third sister Mary, were all in show business since vaudeville.
Betty was in the following movies: 'Swing Hostess' (1944), 'Too Young to Know' (1945), 'Cinderella Jones' (Uncredited) (1946), 'Hollywood Canteen' (Uncredited)(1944), 'Cover Girl' (Uncredited) (1944) and a few others.
She married Joe Franzalia in 1948. They lived in Florida where they riased their daughter Toni. Joe passed away in 1999.
Sisters
Mary Myrl Brodel Russom (1916-2015), Joan Agnes Brodel Leslie Caldwell
(1925-2015) and Elizabeth Betty Ann Brodel Franazlia (1930-2024) Click here to read a bit more about Betty.
Cousins: Joan (Brodel-Leslie) Caldwell, Betty Brodel Franzalia
(lived in Florida), Pat and Joyce's step-sister on a visit from
Michigan, Joyce (Hearn) Palmer, Pat (Hearn) Hibben, Mary (Brodel) Russom
(lived in the San Fernando Valley). Click here to see more pics of Joan.
Written by Cathy Palmer March 4, 2024
MARCH 7, 2024 UPDATE Hollywood Report Article
Betty Brodel, Actress and Sister of ‘Sergeant York’ Star Joan Leslie, Dies at 104
Her credits included ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy,’ ‘Thank Your Lucky Stars,’ ‘Hollywood Canteen’ and ‘Swing Hostess.’
From left: Sisters Betty Brodel, Joan Leslie and Mary Brodel circa 1941
Courtesy Everett Collection
Betty Brodel, a singer, actress and older sister of High Sierra and Sergeant York star Joan Leslie, died Sunday in Florida, family member Cathy Palmer told The Hollywood Reporter. She was 104.
Brodel appeared with Leslie in the wartime charity films Thank Your LuckyStars (1943) and Hollywood Canteen (1944), plus Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Too Young to Know (1945) and Cinderella Jones (1946).
Elizabeth Ann Brodel was born in Detroit on Feb. 5, 1920. Her father,
John Brodel, was a bank teller and her mother, Agnes, a pianist and
homemaker.
She and her siblings Mary (born in 1916) and Joan (born in 1925) sang
and danced in a vaudeville act called The Brodel Sisters, performing in
their hometown and New York City and touring from Canada to Florida.
When a talent scout signed Mary to a contract at MGM, the family headed
to Burbank, and the sisters appeared in the 1936 short film Signing Off.
Betty also showed up in Ladies Courageous (1944), Cover Girl (1944) and Swing Hostess (1944) before she married Joe Franzalia in 1948. They were together until his death in 1999.
From left: Claire Rochelle, Betty Brodel and Harry Holman in 1944’s Swing Hostess
Courtesy Everett Collection
She had lived in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, since 1963.
Survivors include her children, Toni and Chuck; grandchildren Polly,
Sonny and Danielle; and great-grandchildren, Taylor, Joe, Layla and
Lily. Another son, Joseph, died in 1951, just days after he was born.
Leslie played the hobbled girl Velma in High Sierra (1941) opposite Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino, the love interest of Gary Cooper’s World War I hero in Sergeant York (1941) and the wife of James Cagney’s George Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy. She died in October 2015 at age 90.
And Mary Brodel, who appeared in films including Sunset Murder Case (1938), Down the Wyoming Trail (1939) and Signing Off (1936), died in June 2015 at age 98.
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
