Early Life
Born Mary Leta Dorothy Slaton in New Orleans, Louisiana, she was the daughter of Carmen Louise (née LaPorte) and John Watson Slaton, both of whom were waiters. Lamour was of French Louisianan, Spanish and Irish descent. Her parents' marriage lasted only a few years, with her mother re-marrying Clarence Lambour, and Dorothy took his last name. That marriage also ended in divorce when Dorothy was a teenager.
In 1935, she had her own fifteen-minute weekly musical program on NBC Radio. She also sang on the popular Rudy Vallee radio show and The Chase and Sanborn Hour.
Early in her career, Lamour met J. Edgar Hoover, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. According to Hoover's biographer Richard Hack, Hoover pursued Lamour romantically, but she was initially interested only in friendship with him. Hoover and Lamour remained close friends to the end of Hoover's life, and after his 1972 death, Lamour did not deny rumors that she'd had an affair with him in the years after she divorced Herbie Kay. However, this appears nowhere in her memoirs My Side of the Road (Prentice-Hall, 1980) ISBN 0-13-218594-6.
Read more about this topic: Dorothy Lamour
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“I doubt that I would have taken so many leaps in my own writing or been as clear about my feminist and political commitments if I had not been anointed as early as I was. Some major form of recognition seems to have to mark a woman’s career for her to be able to go out on a limb without having her credentials questioned.”
—Ruth Behar (b. 1956)
“The more highly public life is organized the lower does its morality sink.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)