Lina Romay: a fan's views on her films. By
Bill Franco
22 Sept. 2005
I'm just a
regular guy who once turned on the TV and saw an old movie "Love
Laughs at Andy Hardy". I paid little attention to the amusing
antics of Judge Hardy and his family when I suddenly saw a lovely senorita
singing and dancing in a scene with young Andy. I was mesmerized by
this lady who I had no idea really she she was, but became smitten. It
was not until many years later when I discovered her name and a little about
her.
I found that her name is Lina
Romay! This little tribute page covers some observations about her
movie appearances principally made from WW2, the '40s and '50s. This
lovely lady first appeared
on the silver screen as a (unbilled) singer in Xavier Cugat's orchestra.
She came to Hollywood under contract to Columbia then worked briefly for MGM
and RKO Studios, in a film career that spanned the years 1942 to 1953. She can be seen in such stellar movies as You Were Never Lovelier
(1942) starring Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth and Bathing Beauty
(1944) starring Esther Williams and Red Skelton. She
attracted the attention of servicemen worldwide as a stunning Latin beauty
and appeared in Yank Magazine as a pinup girl or cover girl in other
publications. She also appeared in several Soundies of the era, no
doubt having been selected because of her exceptional singing voice and
uncommon good looks. Being of Mexican heritage, and having been born in the USA,
Miss Romay could sing equally as well in both English and Spanish and her
roles she played were both as Spanish senoritas to non-ethnic Anglo roles. She
appears with Xavier Cugat in the WW2 feature Stage Door Canteen,
where she can be seen singing and even dancing a bit with Cugat, with the
delightful song "A Bombshell From Brooklyn". (a clip of this
song can be found on YouTube) Lina reminds some of enchanting Carmen Miranda, especially in her excellence in singing
and stage presence as seen in The Heat's On (1943). She is top
notch in this picture, as evidenced by her fabulous singing and hand
gestures...yes, hand gestures. I don't know if my fellow fans have
noticed, but she is perfectly poised a la Miranda while delivering her songs
and perfectly gestures with her hands. It's very poetic, feminine and
artistic, so if you are lucky enough to see this movie, you'll see what I
mean. Several movies
later, Lina proves herself a talented actress by
appearing in a notable dramatic role in the little gem Adventure (1945) with
Clark Gable, where she plays Gable's first love interest in the picture (the
"girl in a distant port), but second-fiddle to Greer Garson in the
picture which boasted the byline "Gables Back and Garson's Got
Him". Lina's performance was very convincing and quite important
in the movie. She even gets to sing some wonderful Spanish-language
songs. Although it was a minor part in the picture, she was no doubt
noticed by her growing legion of fans and moviegoers just discovering her
charms and talents. Gable's really lucky that he gets to play brief
love scenes with Lina, who's simply stunning on the silver
screen. Lina nearly steals the show in her next
project "Love Laughs at Andy Hardy" (1946), playing Polly
Benedict's perky cousin. She
charms everybody with a sexy and spirited song and dance near the
opening
scenes, as her character enchants the townsfolk including Judge
Hardy and
his family. However, our hero Andy, seems bored and
daydreaming of his
girl, even while the stunning Lina does the rumba for him. Her
infectious smile and cheery personality truly light up the
screen. It's an important
role for Lina which is still pleasing audiences today, as this was
the first
Romay movie I had the pleasure of seeing, some forty years ago or
so. Yes,
you can find this movie on Amazon.com (see links on this site).
In
Lina's next picture, Honeymoon (1947), a vehicle for a maturing teenaged Shirley
Temple, she portrays Franchot Tone's girlfriend. For you bathing suit
and figure fans, I might add that you get to see Miss Romay modeling a smart bathing suit by the pool. She
plays the neglected fiancé of the Franchot Tone character, who is caught up
in amusing and complicated situations trying to arrange the quick marriage
of Temple and soldier Guy Madison. Jealous Lina thinks something is
going on between cutie-pie Shirley and Franchot, but things finally get smoothed out
in this cute comedy. In an interesting scene, Lina is the center of
attention as she prepares to dive into the pool, but as Shirley appears in
swim attire, all the men's heads turn as they are transfixed on her, thereby
deflating Lina's ego somewhat. This movie is rather hard to find, but
occasionally can be seen on classic movie channels.
She acted in a supporting role in Embraceable You (1948), a drama
with some light moments but ultimately its not a happy film, especially more so
because our Lina does not sing or dance in it. But she does very well as the
main character's best friend. In 1949's The Big Wheel Lina again
appears with Mickey Rooney. Here she plays a sultry nightclub singer, who parties it up with road racer
Mickey who's won new-found fame as a regional stock car racer. She is sort of a bad girl
who has a negative influence on Mickey's character and causes him to fall
from good graces with his regular gal and his racing family. But toward
films end, he wises up, wins the big race and gets the girl..the good one,
not our Lina who again really stands out. She is quite attractive (a
knock-out, in fact),
very sensual as she sings and dances while wooing innocent Mickey with a
very grown-up vampish delivery. Lina has definitely demonstrated depth
in this one, as she
projects a sultry, yet sweet image on the screen. I
consider it a must-see for Lina fans. It's a treat to see Lina in the
role as lounge singer with that great figure and with a smile that
will surely win you over. If you haven't seen this picture, what are you
waiting for? It can be found on our Amazon.com links.
One little doozy in which Lina
appears is in a cartoon from Warner Bros. the manic Droopy series. In
the animated short "Senor Droopy", little Droopy heroically takes
on the bull in a Mexican bull fight to win the affection of his dream girl,
Lina Romay! In the cartoon's end, he actually winds up on Lina's lap
and gets a kiss from her, in an amusing early piece of special effects
combining live action with an animated Droopy. Hollywood used to
animate the popular actors of the day so quite possible that somebody once
"inked" the curvaceous Lina on some obscure film.
"Joe Palooka in the Big
Fight" (1949) has our girl Lina playing a minor character somewhat following in
the footsteps of Lupe Velez (the Mexican spitfire) from the very first Joe Palooka movie starring Jimmy Durante,
as the Latin hottie who latches onto the clean-cut hero with her allure
thereby ruining him and taking him for all he's got in the process. Lina is
Maxine Holland, a beautiful "bad" girl under the employ of a bunch
of crooks who are bent on giving Joe bad publicity in an effort to get him
to fight their man under less-than-honest circumstances. Our girl
entices the hero Joe by planting a huge one on his kisser after winning a
beauty contest where Joe was a judge. Lina looks great in a
one-piece bathing suit with high heels, in an all-too brief appearance.
Later, she wants out from under the thumb of hoods and tries to spill the
beans to Joe and Knobby, (for..ahem..$5,000) but unfortunately the crooks
bump her off before she can squeal. Yes, you read it right, she is
murdered! (boo) but gets to show off her skills as a tough female character
who can give and take with hoods, puffing on a cigarette with a tough
demeanor. Yet she never
loses her intense sex appeal in the process. This movie is also
very hard to find.
In a 1949 movie The Lady
Takes a Sailor, Lina again plays a hot nightclub singer, dating the
movie's male lead. It's a supporting role but we are treated to more of
Lina's wonderful singing voice and some great comical scenes with the films
lead characters (starring a lovely Jane Wyman).
Latin ladies
as the principal star in the American cinema
were a rarity, especially from this era.. Some authors have said that their presence on the
screen can be traced directly to the Brazilian bombshell Carmen Miranda.
In 1945, Carmen was making more than $200,000 annually, making her the
highest salaried woman in the U.S. - the result of her combined Fox salary,
radio, nightclub and recording careers. Someone coined the term, The
Miranda, which saw other studios clamoring to obtain their own version of
Carmen Miranda - Paramount had their own Miranda clone, 18-year old Olga San
Juan, refreshingly partnered with Fred Astaire in "Blue Skies."
MGM had our own sparkling Lina Romay. And even Republic was grooming Herbert
J. Yates protégée, Estelita Rodriquez.
In 1949, Lina
headed out West and acted in a couple
of shorts for Universal-International, starring Western singer Tex
Williams. She sings snappy Western songs and generally lights up the
screen displaying her usual perky and lovely self. Generally light
fare and a real treat especially for fans of Country and Western from this
era. I did find some video copies of these movies from old grainy
sources, but I don't think these are commercially available.
Lina's last
(to my knowledge) major Hollywood film was 1953's The Man Behind the Gun
which starred Randolph Scott. Again she plays a "bad girl",
a singing bar owner who's mixed up with bad hombres involved in murder, gun
running, gambling, or in other words the usual Western type riff-raff and
outlaws. Some notable scenes has our Lina (as Chona Degnon) licking
her own cigarette and even shooting at the hero, the Major. Her two
beautiful renditions of lovely Spanish songs belie the fact that she is
tough as nails. She's both beautiful and dangerous yet sings like an
angel. Her final scenes has her involved in a wild cat-fight with
Miss Laura, with chairs being thrown and broken on backs and all.
Unfortunately when finally subdued and when appearing as if she was ready to
turn honest and agree to testify against the gang, their leader shoots her
down, just before the films shoot-em-up grand finale. Sadly for Lina
fans, this exciting movie saw her getting done-in and also marked the last
major film for Lina. She apparently retired from movies altogether and is
later only rarely seen on the small screen.
I'd like to touch upon
another important aspect of Lina's career: radio. An
exceptionally fine singer,
she was often heard on popular radio shows of the 1940's such as Jack Benny,
Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. She sang on Hollywood Canteen and in USO
shows broadcast to American serviceman overseas during WW2. My
research has uncovered her appearances on at least 15 Command Performance
radio shows. She also was featured in several Mail Call broadcasts,
and with the
Marx Bros, quite an impressive lineup! She sang on Bing
Crosby's
Philco Shows and others. She even had her own radio show, some
of
which are available by some private collectors. We know, based
on what I've read, her early days as the lead female singer with Xavier
Cugat's
orchestra, while he was the headlining at the Waldorf Astoria.
But I
think she left his employ when she signed a film contract with MGM
during
that period. She also has appeared on Broadway, most notably
in
Michael Todd's Peep Show and singing in many small venues. Over the years, since the 1950's, I have not found any of
her works so can only surmise that she retired or retreated from show
business and settled down. Unfortunately I know little about Lina's
professional work since then. Can somebody fill me in? She
certainly deserves a complete biography. As I mentioned before, she
did some Soundies too. Help me out, fans, if you have any of her Soundies
transferred to video or DVD, I want to hear from you.
Lina's TV work:
I've also read that in
1949, she began a three year run as a featured vocalist on TV's Paul Whiteman's
Goodyear Review a show which is now nearly
impossible to find anywhere, nor have I actually verified if this is even
true. Again, if anybody has any idea where I
can get it on VHS or DVD, do let me know. She also also
appeared in minor roles or as guest stars elsewhere. In 1957,
thirty-five year old Lina appeared as a Spanish-speaking senorita in an
episode of Ozzie and Harriet, playing the chaperone of a lovely teen Latin
teenager who goes to a dance with one of the boys. It's both amusing
and enchanting to see lovely Lina again, in what possibly may be her last
known (at least to me) TV appearance on a popular show. In it, to
the dismay of some, she doesn't speak a word of English and doesn't even
sing. This is understandable since she was playing second fiddle to a
younger starlet named Lupita. I hope I find more of Lina's TV
appearances to write about.
Lina's recent
years were spent in Southern California where she was active for
many years
with the Pacific Pioneers Broadcasters association in California
that meets
regularly and honors broadcast performers of yesteryear on a regular
basis and
endeavors to keep the traditions of broadcasting history
alive. I was
very honored to know that Lina herself loved this site dedicated to
her and
was happy that so many people still remembered her after so many
years. If
anybody can fill me in on Lina's life and career do contact me for
inclusion
in this site. My goal is to honor this wonderful lady for
simply wowing her fans over the years with her tremendous talents, and
timeless beauty. Even though she had a rather short professional
career, I
would place her right up there with the better known movie
stars. Just look at any of her movies...you will realize that
this gorgeous lady not only performed beautifully, could take on any
role, and
oh yes, she could really
sing!
--Bill
Franco (originally written in 2005, updated 12/21/10)
Lina Romay photos found on the 'net or from her movies:
From "Bathing Beauty" with
Cugat Orchestra
Get a load of
those cute dimples!
Pretty Miss Lina Romay from "You Were Never Lovelier"
with Cugat Orchestra
