A Penny for Your Thoughts

Back in the dark ages, before cable TV and its plentiful fare, Sunday mornings were a wasteland.

Public domain image

One of the options was watching old B movies of the family variety. Lots of Andy Hardy. Ma and Pa Kettle. And Blondie.

The title character in Blondie was played by Penny Singleton. Her portrayal was of the dizzy dame variety, making for screwball comedy that took place largely around the home.

I never thought much about Ms. Singleton, who would eventually appear in over two dozen Blondie movies opposite Arthur Lake's Dagwood. 

What brought her to mind recently was watching After the Thin Man, in which she appeared.

Penny was born Mariana Dorothy McNulty. She began her career as a child actor, completing her formal education only through the sixth grade. Performing in vaudeville, she sang and danced with the likes of Milton Berle and Jack Benny.

Dorothy married dentist Laurence Singleton in 1937, but after two years, the only thing she kept was his name. ("Penny" came from her habit of collecting pennies in a jar.) In 1941, she wed again, this time to Blondie producer Robert Sparks, a marriage that lasted until the groom's passing in 1964. She had two daughters with her second husband.

After the Blondie movies, Singleton cast about for her next act. Being typecast stymied her career, but she forged ahead, recreating herself in her own nightclub act. She also joined the USO tour in Korea. 

But what's really cool about Penny Singleton wasn't so much her career (although playing the voice of Jane Jetson in The Jetsons animated TV show was pretty awesome), but her extracurriculars.

Clearly, this Blondie was one smart cookie. 

Penny Singleton became an active member and occasional president of AGVA (American Guild of Variety Artists). She fought for women's rights and even testified before a United States Congress subcommittee in 1962 about the union's failings in representing its female workers. She fought for better pay, improved working conditions and benefits for the performers.

In 1967, Singleton led a strike by the Radio City Rockettes, one that proved successful in achieving better working conditions for the dancers. In 1970, she fought for a safer stage for the Disney on Parade Show. (Dancers had been suffering from injuries because a support floor had been deemed too expensive to ship with the traveling show.) This same year she took on Disneyland as well, fighting for better treatment for the college students they employed for summer jobs.

The practice of paying actors for repeat broadcasts of their appearances in movies or shows (known as "residuals") was purportedly an idea she came up with, along with the term "residuals." 

Other fun facts: Singleton was the first woman to be president of an AFL-CIO union. She has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for radio, the other for movies. And she was the lucky recipient of Humphrey Bogart's first screen kiss in Swing Your Lady. 

Penny Singleton had quite a life. It ended in 2003 at the age of 95.

But what a run it was.