Mary Lee (actress)


Mary Lee was a big band singer and B movie actress from the late 1930s into the 1940s, appearing mostly in Westerns. She did not make any screen appearances after 1944.

Early years

Born Mary Lee Wooters in Centralia, Illinois on October 24, 1924, her mother and father were Lela Myrtle Telford and Louis Ellis Wooters. They had four daughters, Vera Mae, Dorris Lucille, Mary Lee, and Norma Jean. Dorris Lucille died shortly after birth in 1923. When Mary Lee was four years old the family moved to Ottawa, Illinois, where Louis Wooters opened a barbershop. At age six, Mary Lee began singing with her father and older sister, Vera, who were already performing country and popular songs over a low power radio station and at various events in the LaSalle County, Illinois area.

Music

In mid-June 1938, Mary Lee joined the Ted Weems Orchestra, traveling with the group four months a year, accompanied by either her mother or her older sister as companion and teacher. She recorded five sides with the Weems band including , a duet with Elmo Tanner from an October 5, 1939 session, issued as Decca 2829-B. In the summer of 1942, Mary Lee recorded eight tracks in two sessions with Bob Crosby's Bob Cats, reissued in Australia on Swaggie CD 504 as Bob Crosby's Bob Cats - Volume Four 1941-1942.
Decades later a review of Varèse Sarabande CD VSD-5910 / Gene Autry With His Little Darlin' Mary Lee in the trade publication Billboard described Mary Lee as a "clear-voiced, expressive singer", noting that she was "heralded as Republic's answer to MGM's Judy Garland." The CD, released in 1998, is a compilation of songs from Mary Lee's appearances in Gene Autry films including
from Gaucho Serenade and from Ridin' on a Rainbow.

Film

Mary Lee's first screen appearance was with Warner Bros., in Nancy Drew... Reporter, released February 18, 1939, where she portrayed Mary Nickerson, the younger sister of Nancy Drew's boyfriend, Ted Nickerson. The film utilized her vocal talents in the . In the fall of 1939, Mary Lee accepted a job at Republic Pictures where she starred alongside Gene Autry and June Storey in South of the Border. Republic signed her to a five-year contract in June 1940. She starred in a total of nine Autry films, the first five of those with June Storey, always playing the leading lady's younger sister "Patsy" except in Melody Ranch where her character's name was "Penny". Mary Lee's last appearance in an Autry film was in The Singing Hill with Virginia Dale. She also appeared in nine additional Republic feature films, including Barnyard Follies in 1940 with June Storey and younger sister Norma Jean Wooters and two Roy Rogers films in 1944, plus three of Republic's "Meet the Stars" shorts.
Her other films included Rancho Grande, Ride, Tenderfoot, Ride, Sing, Dance, Plenty Hot, Carolina Moon and Gaucho Serenade.
"Nobody's Darling" is a 1943 American musical film directed by Anthony Mann and written by Olive Cooper. The film stars Mary Lee, Louis Calhern, Gladys George, Jackie Moran, Lee Patrick and Benny Bartlett. The film was released on August 27, 1943, by Republic Pictures

World War II

Gene Autry enlisted in July 1942 in the U.S. Army Air Corps, where he would serve for the duration of the war plus six months. With Autry unavailable, Republic soon billed Mary Lee as "America's Little Sister" and starred her in B musicals Shantytown, Nobody's Darling, and Three Little Sisters in addition to giving her starring roles in the two Roy Rogers films. In her first Rogers film, Cowboy and the Senorita, Roy's first picture with Dale Evans, Mary Lee was given second billing above Dale and is featured in the film's elaborate musical productions. There, with the Sons of the Pioneers, Mary Lee sings . In the finale, Dale Evans, Mary Lee, and Roy Rogers sing with the Sons of the Pioneers. Then, in Song of Nevada, Mary Lee's last screen appearance, backed by the Sons of the Pioneers, she sings , written by Glenn Spencer, and reprises it in the . Compare Mary Lee's height there at age nineteen to that of Dale Evans who was 5′-4″ tall.
Having married in 1943, with a child born in November 1944, and her five-year contract at Republic Pictures running out in February 1945, Mary Lee did not re-sign with Republic Pictures but may have done some further work with Ted Weems.

Personal life

In Ottawa, Illinois, Mary Lee attended Lincoln Elementary School, graduating from the eighth grade in 1938. In late 1939 or early 1940 the Wooters family moved from Ottawa to Los Angeles. There Mary Lee attended Mar-Ken School, a private school in Hollywood for professional children. As a Junior she was elected Secretary of the Student Body. She graduated from Mar-Ken in 1942. On November 12, 1943, Mary Lee Wooters married Harry J. Banan, First Sergeant, United States Army, who had recently returned from World War II service at Guadalcanal, to whom she would remain married until his death in 1990. Together they had two children, Harry Philip and Laura Lee. In the late 1950s through the 1960s the Banans resided in Pullman, Washington where M.Sgt. Harry J. Banan was an Army ROTC instructor at Washington State University. Later, after they returned to California, Mary Lee was an account teller at Bank of America where she worked for 15 years.

Death

Mary Lee Banan died in Sacramento, California on June 6, 1996, aged 71, and is interred alongside her husband at Sacramento's East Lawn Sierra Hills Cemetery.

Soundtracks and reissues on CD