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Frances Rafferty Profile
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Photo gallery |
| 26 June 22 | is born in Sioux City, Iowa, the daughter of Maxwell and De Etta Rafferty. Her father runs Rafferty’s Wallpaper and Paint Company. |
| ? | attends Miss Eaton’s Day School |
| ? | attends Bryant School |
| June 31 | moves with her parents to Los Angeles |
| ? | graduates from University High School |
| Late 30s | together with her girlhood friend, aspiring actress Alexis Smith, she studies ballet at the Falcon Studios on Hollywood Boulevard |
| makes her professional debut as a dancer when she appears with Smith in several Hollywood Bowl productions. She joins the Hollywood Bowl Ballet Company for three years. |
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| ? | is an understudy to Vera Zorina |
| ? | catches the attention of a talent scout during one of her ballet performances with the Los Angeles Civic Opera Association |
| 42 | attends UCLA when tested by MGM and cast for Dragon Seed |
| September 42 | she and fellow starlets Dorothy Morris and Vicki Lane are pictured riding elephants for a game of water polo |
| February 43 | on her first date with Don Taylor she wears her new fur-trimmed coat. They go to a movie. |
| May 43 | columnist Jimmy Fidler thinks that she and sailor Arty Shaw (not the bandleader) are altar-bound |
| 16 September 43 | is on the cover of Yank, the Army Weekly |
| October 43 | the MGM press agents call her "Miss Cheesecake" because she makes such delicious publicity photographs. Currently she seen as the "Sweetheart of the Swing Shift." |
| Early November 43 | the press heralds that she became engaged to Lieutenant Dewey Barnes, whom she met on a camp tour. "The wedding will be sometime this year." |
| 3 June 44 | meets her future husband, Major John E. Horton, at the wedding of Alexis Smith and Craig Stevens |
| 30 August 44 | marries Horton, formerly of Kansas City, Missouri, and now stationed at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, at St. Albans Episcopal Church in Westwood, Los Angeles. He's 25; she's 22. Alexis Smith and Craig Stevens are attendants at the wedding. |
| December 44 | the press reports that when she and her husband build their Hollywood home after the war, it will be furnished with knickknacks and furnishings from Italy. Major John Horton, currently in Italy, has written her he's buying all kinds of odd pieces and is shipping them back to her. |
| 12 October 45 | is on the cover of Yank, the Army Weekly |
| December 45 | she and Horton separate |
| 11 April 46 | files suit for divorce against Horton, recently discharged Army major. She charges cruelty. |
| November 46 | may wait until after Christmas to get a Nevada divorce so she can marry Bob Stanton, singer Dick Haymes' brother. "Her family wants her home for the holidays." |
| 19 February 47 | wins her divorce from Horton in Los Angeles. She testifies that "when her husband left her, a few days after returning from overseas, she lost 14 pounds and was unable to work." |
| May 47 | she, Chili Williams and Benny Rubin are off Zanesville, Ohio, for the three-day premiere celebration of Eagle-Lion's Repeat Performance |
| resides on a ranch in the San Fernando Valley |
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| hits the news with a life-saving act aboard a TWA airliner over Arizona. Columnist Harrison Carroll reports: "She saved the life of a man stricken on a plane en route to Ohio. She is the only one who figured out that the sick man was trying to tell them to give him a medicine from his briefcase." |
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| 18 June 47 | she and Stanton announce their engagement. The reception is held at a New York City hotel. |
| February 48 | on the set of Eagle Lion's Lost Honeymoon, she turns up wearing a gold heart and key bracelet set, a present from her constant escort, Bob Stanton, the singer |
| 10 October 48 | marries ex-Air Force colonel-turned-aircraft broker Thomas R. Baker, in Riverside. She and Baker met last year on a blind date. Mrs. George D. Cooksey of Spartanburg, South Carolina, is matron of honor, and John Alison, Undersecretary of Commerce in charge of air, is best man. The press notes, that Baker is now an executive in Jackie Coogan's airplane company. Baker will later become general manager of the Los Alamitos Racetrack. |
| October 49 | does advertisements for Flame-Glo Lipstik |
| June 50 | her son, Kevin Elliott, is born at a Hollywood hospital |
| ? | her daughter, Bridget, is born |
| June 54 | is the mother of two |
| October 56 | is seen at Lucey's in Hollywood with her girlfriend, Alexis Smith |
| October 57 | attends the grand opening of Bank of America's Sepulveda-Devonshire branch at 10300 Sepulveda Boulevard, Van Nuys |
| June 58 | she and actors Steve Terrell and Phil Ahn are judges at a Little League ceremony in Panoramic City |
| July 58 | is elected honorary fire chief of Panoramic City |
| June 59 | she and Lang Jeffries, star of NBC's "Rescue Squad 8," attend a celebrity luncheon held at Phil Ahn's Moongate Restaurant in Panoramic City |
| 60s | settles on a ranch in Paso Robles, California, and helps her husband raise quarter horses |
| 9 June 93 | is at Alexis Smith’s bedside, along with Smith’s husband Craig Stevens, the night the actress dies of brain cancer |
| 01 | the Bakers have a son and a daughter and are grandparents. Their address is 22141 Burbank Boulevard #4, Woodland Hills, CA 91367. |
| 04? | her husband suffers from Alzheimer’s |
| 18 April 04 | dies at age 81 at her home in Paso Robles, California. Her husband survives. |
| Sources: Kirk Crivello, Famous Iowans by Tom Longden, Modern Screen, The Times Recorder, Syracuse Herald-Journal, Reno Evening Gazette, Lincoln Sunday Journal and Star, Nevada State Journal, The News, The Daily Courier, Oakland Tribune, Reno Evening Gazette, The Times Recorder, The Zanesville Signal, Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, Middletown Times Herald, The Bridgeport Post, The Portsmouth Herald, The Hammond Times, Van Nuys News, pro.corbis.com | |
| Recommended Books: | |
| Links: Filmography | |