Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Dawn Sheree North- "The New Marilyn Monroe".


Dawn Sheree North, was first spotted by a choreographer while performing at the Macayo Club, North was then cast as a chorus girl in, Here Come the Girls (1953) starring Bob Hope. Sheree made her Broadway debut in the musical Hazel Flagg, which she won a Theatre World Award. She went on to perform her role in the film version Living It Up. In 1954, North signed on with 20th Century-Fox and performed in lead role in How to Be Very, Very Popular, a role that was rejected by Marilyn Monroe. Which received huge media attention.Film historians, claim North's dance performance to "Shake, Rattle and Roll", as the film's most memorable scene. After the success of How to Be Very, Very Popular, North was named by Fox as the "new Marilyn Monroe". Fox, soon lost interest in her and focused their attention on, Jayne Mansfield. Decades later, North played Monroe's mother in the television movie Marilyn (1980): The Untold Story. After North's contract with Fox ended in 1958, she continued her career in films and guest spots in television shows, Gunsmoke, Breaking Point and Ben Casey. In the 1960s, she returned to Broadway in, Can Get It for You Wholesale, with Elliott Gould and Barbra Streisand. She played the fugitive-aiding photographer in Don Siegel's Charley Varrick (1973) and as John Wayne's long-lost love in his final film, The Shootist (1976). Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, North performed in guest spots on Hawaii Five-O, Matlock, Magnum, P.I., The Mary Tyler Moore Show, she played Lou Grants girlfriend, and The Golden Girls, she played Blanche Devereaux's sister, Virginia. She performed in the sitcom I'm a Big Girl Now with Diana Canova, Danny Thomas, Rori King and a young Martin Short. In 1983, she performed in the series Bay City Blues, starring Michael Nouri, Dennis Franz, Pat Corley and Sharon Stone. In the 1990s, she performed as Kramers mother, Babs Kramer, in the TV series Seinfeld. North's last onscreen role came in the 1998 John Landis film Susan's Plan.

2 comments:

  1. she was a very pretty girl and still is.

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  2. Born in January, 1959, my mother named me Sheree.....because of "the new Marilyn Monroe" dub

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