Benay Venuta (born Benvenuta Rose Crooke; January 27, 1910 – September 1, 1995) was an American actress, singer and dancer. She is best known for her work in the mid and late 1930s, in which she parlayed her success on Broadway into star treatment on network radio. After World War II, she developed an enduring career as a supporting actress in musicals on stage and in Hollywood, interspersed with work on television.
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Early life
Venuta was born Benvenuta Rose Crooke in San Francisco to an English father and Swiss-Italian mother. A graduate of Hollywood High School in Los Angeles, she learned French and German before she dropped out of a finishing school in Geneva, after which she lived in London where she worked as a dancer before returning to the United States in 1929. "My father was dead," she said, "and I had to go to work" because her family had no money.