Dolly Dawn

Dolly Dawn (born Theresa Anna Maria Stabile; February 3, 1916 – December 11, 2002)

Career Dawn initially was given the stage name Billie Starr when she sang on a radio station in Newark. An announcer thought her birth name was too long, so he began calling her Billie Starr. In 1935 she replaced Loretta Lee as vocalist with George Hall's orchestra; she was given the name Dolly Dawn by Harriet Mencken, a writer for the New York Journal-American. She and the band broadcast six days a week from the Grill Room of the Taft Hotel in New York via CBS Radio, and became very popular. Her most successful song with the band was "You're a Sweetheart", released in 1938. In 1937 a poll by The Orchestra World magazine named her the outstanding orchestra vocalist of the year. From 1942 she continued without the band, whose members were drafted during the Second World War. She appeared in clubs and dance halls and in other engagements throughout the US, and continued to record into the 1950s. Dawn performed in nightclubs, reprising songs from the big-band era. A review in The New York Times mentioned her "relaxed, unpretentious, straightforward manner of singing" as she performed with only a piano for accompaniment in 1978. A 1980 review noted improvement after "several relatively unimpressive appearances" and the addition of bass and drums to the piano accompaniment. The review commended her technique of adapting her style to each song. Dawn did not marry; she said her music was her husband and children. She died on December 11 2002, aged 86, from kidney failure at the Lillian Booth Actors Home in Englewood, New Jersey.