Monday, March 4, 2024

Elizabeth "Betty" Ann Brodel Franzalia (1920-2024)

 Elizabeth "Betty" Ann Brodel Franzalia
February 5, 1920 - March 3, 2024
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.’

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 Lucky Stars (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.

Wednesday, August 16, 2023

Misc Photos

Gordon Palmer working on set as Studio Grip
Cathy 1949
Cathy 1949 with sister Susie
Grace and Joe Emmett around 1975
Lee and Jerry 1976
Grace, Joe, Lee and Jerry Emmett 1975 Christmas
Kelly and Cathy around 1975
 

Saturday, April 8, 2023

Saturday, November 19, 2022

The Story of The Nutcracker Read by Claire Bloom, Music by Tchaikovsky

When my children were young, we listened to this delightful version of the story of The Nutcracker with the music!


 

"The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" (German: Nussknacker und Mausekönig) is a story written in 1816 by Prussian author E. T. A. Hoffmann, in which young Marie Stahlbaum's favorite Christmas toy, the Nutcracker, comes alive and, after defeating the evil Mouse King in battle, whisks her away to a magical kingdom populated by dolls. 

The story was originally published in Berlin in German as part of the collection Kinder-Mährchen, Children's Stories, by In der Realschulbuchhandlung. 

In 1892, the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and choreographers Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov turned Alexandre Dumas' adaptation of the story into the ballet The Nutcracker.