Virginia Vale

Virginia Vale

Born: May 20, 1920
Died: September 14, 2006
in Dallas, Texas, USA
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Virginia Vale (born Dorothy Howe, 20 May 1920 – 14 Sep 2006) was an American film actress. She starred in a number of B-movie Westerns but took a variety of other roles as well, notably in Blonde Comet (1941), in which she played a race car driver.

Vale was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. H. H. Howe. Before becoming a professional actor, she was a switchboard operator in Dallas, Texas, and honed her acting skills in productions at a little theater in Dallas. After a representative of Paramount Pictures saw her in a leading role, he invited her to make a screen test, which led to a contract. (Another source says that Howe was working at the switchboard in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Dallas office, where a talent scout for Paramount found her and signed her to a contract.

Career

Several of Vale's early films were made using her birth name. The name Virginia Vale had been chosen in advance for the female winner of the 1939 Gateway to Hollywood contest, a nationwide talent search sponsored by producer Jesse Lasky -- as noted (somewhat indignantly) then by another Virginia Vale a syndicated columnist covering the film industry. Vale edged out Rhonda Fleming in the 1939 contest.

After her film career, she became an executive secretary at Lockheed and also a competition judge for the US Figure Skating Association. She was eventually honored by the USFSA for 50 years of service in that role. Before becoming a judge, she'd also briefly been a competition skater. Her life in film and skating was featured at the 2002 U.S. figure skating championships and a memorial trophy for "most outstanding performance" was given in her name at the 2007 California Championships.

Movies for Virginia Vale...

Title: New Amsterdam
Character: kira davis
Released: September 25, 2018
Type: TV
The new medical director breaks the rules to heal the system at America's oldest public hospital. Max Goodwin sets out to tear up the bureaucracy and provide exceptional care, but the doctors and staff are not so sure he can succeed. They've heard this before. Not taking "no" for an answer, Dr. Goodwin's instinctive response to problems large and small is four simple words: "How can I help?" He has to disrupt the status quo and prove he'll stop at nothing to breathe new life into this underfunded and underappreciated hospital, returning it to the glory that put it on the map.
bee
Crime, Inc.
Title: Crime, Inc.
Character: Trixie Waters
Released: April 15, 1945
Type: Movie
A crime reporter writes book to expose names and methods of the criminal leaders. He is held on a charge after refusing to explain how he got his information, but is released and helps to expose the syndicate.
bee
Broadway Big Shot
Title: Broadway Big Shot
Character: Betty Collins
Released: February 6, 1942
Type: Movie
This drama chronicles the extreme measures taken by a determined young crime reporter to get an interview with a notorious convict. The zealous journalist, also a star quarterback on the town college team, decides to become a convict himself. He gets into the prison, becomes president of the prisoners' union, does his interview, successfully woo's the warden's daughter, and gets out in time to publish his story before anyone else does. His career is off to a tremendous start.
bee
Blonde Comet
Title: Blonde Comet
Character: Beverly Blake
Released: December 26, 1941
Type: Movie
A tire manufacturer's daughter becomes a champion auto racer.
bee
The Gay Falcon
Title: The Gay Falcon
Character: Hysterical Woman (uncredited)
Released: October 24, 1941
Type: Movie
Having forsaken the detective business for the safer confines of personal insurance, Gay Laurence is compelled to return to his sleuthing ways. Along with sidekick Jonathan "Goldie" Locke, he agrees to look into a series of home party robberies that have victimized socialite Maxine Wood. The duo gets more than they bargained for when a murder is committed at Wood's home, but Lawrence still finds time to romance the damsel.
bee
A Panic in the Parlor
Title: A Panic in the Parlor
Character: Mrs. Vivian Errol
Released: June 27, 1941
Type: Movie
Leon goes partying in Tiajuana with a friend,and his wife gets wise and makes plans to each him a lesson. She pretends to have a couple of lovers, including a large Cossack knife-handler. Leon, in order to trap her, disguises himself only to mess up things all around, plus getting fired by his boss.
bee
South of Panama
Title: South of Panama
Character: Janice 'Jan' Martin, aka Dolores Esteban
Released: May 2, 1941
Type: Movie
Secret agent Roger Pryor is dispatched below the border to protect an important scientific formula. Believe it or don't, this mixture has the ability to render things invisible.
bee
Robbers of the Range
Title: Robbers of the Range
Character: Alice Tremaine
Released: April 17, 1941
Type: Movie
Railroad agents frame a landowner who wont sell out to them.
bee
Red Skins and Red Heads
Title: Red Skins and Red Heads
Character: Virginia (uncredited)
Released: April 15, 1941
Type: Movie
Whitley and his singing group want to make time with young ladies at a finishing school...and vice-versa. However, the old matron in charge threatens to shoot Ray and his men so they come up with a plan to trick her.
bee
Repent at Leisure
Title: Repent at Leisure
Character: Elevator Girl
Released: April 4, 1941
Type: Movie
Everyone in a large department store knows that a rising star is married to the owner's daughter, except her husband.
bee
Triple Justice
Title: Triple Justice
Character: Lorna Payson
Released: September 22, 1940
Type: Movie
Brad Henderson arrives in Star City just in time to witness three men rob a bank of $30,000 and kill a teller. Charged for the crime and jailed, Brad realizes he must escape and track down the real killers since the only one who can prove his innocence is his friend, Sheriff Bill Gregory, who has been shot and will not soon regain consciousness. Chasing down the robbers one by one, he eventually discovers the identity of the gang's ringleader.
bee
Stage to Chino
Title: Stage to Chino
Character: Caroline McKay
Released: July 26, 1940
Type: Movie
To investigate a gold-shipping scam, a postal inspector goes undercover and tries to infiltrate the gang he believes is responsible.
bee
Millionaires in Prison
Title: Millionaires in Prison
Character: May Thomas
Released: July 12, 1940
Type: Movie
A crop of millionaire inmates struggle to get accustomed to prison life, while inmate Nick Burton watches out for everyone's interests on the inside.
bee
Prairie Law
Title: Prairie Law
Character: Priscilla Brambull
Released: June 14, 1940
Type: Movie
Judge Curry is selling Austin's land to nesters and his men are rustling his cattle to provide beef. When the Sheriff accuses butcher Gore of possessing stolen beef, Gore kills him. Curry then holds a quick election to change the county seat so he can preside at the trial. But Brill gets the Governor to change it back and this leads to the big shootout between Curry's men and Brill and the ranchers.
bee
You Can't Fool Your Wife
Title: You Can't Fool Your Wife
Character: Sally
Released: May 21, 1940
Type: Movie
Longtime school sweethearts discover married life, thanks to a disagreeable live-in mother-in-law and pressing business obligations, is more rocky than idyllic.
bee
Bullet Code
Title: Bullet Code
Character: Molly Matthews
Released: April 12, 1940
Type: Movie
Protecting himself in an attack by rustlers, Rancher Steve Holden believes he has killed one of the attackers, young Bud Mathews, who in reality has warned Holden of the rustlers' approach. Unaware that Mathews was actually killed by rustler boss Cass Barton, Holden heads out to Mathews' home town where he plans to tell the boy's family of his death but instead uncovers a plan by a local businessman to force Mathews' father out of his ranch.
bee
Legion of the Lawless
Title: Legion of the Lawless
Character: Ellen Ives
Released: January 5, 1940
Type: Movie
Residents of a small frontier town take up arms when vigilantes try to block a railroad right-of-way.
bee
The Marshal Of Mesa City
Title: The Marshal Of Mesa City
Character: Virginia King
Released: November 3, 1939
Type: Movie
A retired lawman gets back into action to fight political corruption.
bee
Three Sons
Title: Three Sons
Character: Phoebe Pardway
Released: October 13, 1939
Type: Movie
A shop owner tries to interest his heirs in the family business.
bee
Unmarried
Title: Unmarried
Character: Betty (as Dorothy Howe)
Released: May 20, 1939
Type: Movie
Pals Pat Rogers and Slag Bailey try to collect a debt from Slag's recently deceased boxing promoter but wind up collecting his child, instead, and raising him as their own son.
bee
Persons in Hiding
Title: Persons in Hiding
Character: Flo
Released: February 10, 1939
Type: Movie
During a stick-up, a woman is excited by the criminal and joins him on his crime spree.
bee
Disbarred
Title: Disbarred
Character: Airline Stewardess
Released: January 6, 1939
Type: Movie
The Bar Association disbars attorney Tyler Cradon when it appears he was implicated in the murder of a prominent vice crusader. Cradon, not wishing to be without an income,is impressed by the way Joan Carroll handled a small-town murder, poses as a real estate agent and offers to get her into a law firm of a friend of his. Placed in the office of Roberts, running a front for Cradon, Joan is taught every trick of the trade. With her cases all prepared for her, she goes from one courtroom victory to another, soon becoming the darling of the underworld and the despair of all law-enforcing authorities.
bee
King of Alcatraz
Title: King of Alcatraz
Character: Dixie (as Dorothy Howe)
Released: September 30, 1938
Type: Movie
A convict who has just escaped from Alcatraz Prison takes over a passenger ship. Two of the ship's crew hatch a plot to overpower him and rescue the ship's passengers.
bee
Cocoanut Grove
Title: Cocoanut Grove
Character: Hazel De Vore
Released: May 20, 1938
Type: Movie
Band tries to get an audition for a job at a prestigious nightclub.
bee
Her Jungle Love
Title: Her Jungle Love
Character: Eleanor Martin
Released: April 15, 1938
Type: Movie
While searching the South Pacific for a missing aviator, Bob Mitchell and Jimmy Wallace are caught in a typhoon and crack up on an island, escaping unharmed with the aid of Tura, a beautiful jungle girl who is the only inhabitant of the island and is believed a goddess by the natives of the adjoining islands. The three are about to leave the island on a make-shift raft when a gang of savage tribesman land, headed by Kuasa, a half-mad potentate who informs them that all whites are his mortal enemies because an Englishwoman once spurned his love and he got his revenge by stealing her daughter, who is Tura.
bee
The Big Broadcast of 1938
Title: The Big Broadcast of 1938
Character: Joan Fielding
Released: February 11, 1938
Type: Movie
The Bellows family causes comic confusion on an ocean liner, with time out for radio-style musical acts.
bee
True Confession
Title: True Confession
Character: Brunette Girl (uncredited)
Released: December 24, 1937
Type: Movie
A writer takes a job as a secretary because her scrupulous husband isn't bringing in the dough as an attorney. When her new employer is murdered, she can't seem to make up her mind as to whether she "dunnit" or not.
bee
Night Club Scandal
Title: Night Club Scandal
Character: Marsh's Maid
Released: November 11, 1937
Type: Movie
When Dr. Ernest Tindal's wife is murdered, evidence mounts to convict her lover, Frank Marian. But Frank knows he didn't do it.....