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Penny Singleton

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Penny Singleton

Penny Singleton (September 15, 1908 – November 12, 2003) was a Hollywood actress best known for her role in the series of motion pictures based on the comic strip Blondie, followed by the popular Blondie radio program.

Born Marianna Dorothy Agnes Letitia McNulty in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and known as Dorothy McNulty, she was the daughter of an Irish-American newspaperman, Benny McNulty. She began her show business career as a child by singing at a silent movie theater, and toured in vaudeville as part of an act called The Kiddie Kabaret. She sang and danced with Milton Berle (whom she had known since childhood) and actor Gene Raymond, and appeared on Broadway in Jack Benny's Great Temptations. She married a dentist, Lawrence Singleton, in 1937, and moved to Hollywood, where she later became billed as Penny Singleton. They had one child, a daughter, and divorced in 1939. She married Robert Sparks in 1941. They had one child, a daughter. Sparks died on July 22, 1963. She appeared as a nightclub dancer in After the Thin Man (still credited under her real name). She was cast opposite Arthur Lake (as Dagwood) in the feature film Blondie in 1938, based on the comic strip by Chic Young. They repeated their roles on a radio comedy beginning in 1939, and in guest appearances on other radio shows. As Dagwood and Blondie Bumstead, they proved so popular that a succession of 27 sequels were made from 1938 until 1950 (the radio show ended the same year). Husband Robert Sparks produced a number of these sequels. Singleton dyed her brunette hair blonde for the rest of her life. She was active in union affairs and was the first woman president of an AFL-CIO union. She led a strike by the Radio City Rockettes. She became familiar to television audiences as the voice of Jane Jetson in the animated series The Jetsons, which originally aired from 1962 until 1963, reprising the role for a syndicated revival which (from 1985 through 1988) and assorted specials, records, and Jetsons: The Movie. She also toured in nightclubs and roadshows of plays and musicals. Singleton died in Sherman Oaks, California following a stroke at the age of 95, and was interred in San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.