Janet Blair

Janet Blair (born Martha Janet Lafferty; April 23, 1921 – February 19, 2007) was an American big-band singer who later became a popular film and television actress. Early years Janet Blair was born Martha Janet Lafferty on April 23, 1921 in Altoona, Pennsylvania, the daughter of musically oriented parents. Her father led the choir and sang solos in his church, and her mother played both piano and organ. She had a brother, Fred Jr., and a sister, Louise. Film Blair's showbusiness career began as a featured singer in the Hal Kemp Orchestra. She began her film career in 1941 under contract to Columbia Pictures. During World War II, she appeared as the pin-up girl in the March 1944 issue of Yank, the Army Weekly magazine. She appeared in a series of successful films, although she may be best remembered for playing Rosalind Russell's sister in My Sister Eileen (1942) and Rita Hayworth's friend in Tonight and Every Night (1945). In the 1947 film The Fabulous Dorseys, Blair returned to her musical roots, portraying a singer. In the late 1940s, she had star billing in the crime drama I Love Trouble and the comedy The Fuller Brush Man (both 1948).