Rosemary DeCamp
Rosemary DeCamp was an American radio, film, and television actress. DeCamp first came to fame in November 1937, when she took the role of Judy Price, the secretary/nurse of Dr. Christian in the long-running radio series of the same name. She also played in The Career of Alice Blair, a transcribed syndicated soap opera that ran in 1939–1940.
She made her film debut in Cheers for Miss Bishop and appeared in many Warner Bros. films, including Eyes in the Night, Yankee Doodle Dandy playing Nellie Cohan opposite James Cagney, This Is The Army playing the wife of George Murphy and the mother of Ronald Reagan, Rhapsody in Blue, and Nora Prentiss. She played the mother of the character played by Sabu Dastagir in Jungle Book. In 1951 and 1953, respectively, she starred in the nostalgic musical films On Moonlight Bay and its sequel, By The Light Of The Silvery Moon, as Alice Winfield, Doris Day's mother, opposite Leon Ames.
DeCamp played Peg Riley in the first television version of The Life of Riley opposite Jackie Gleason in the 1949–1950 season, then reprised the role on radio with original star William Bendix for an episode of Lux Radio Theater in 1950. From 1955–1959, she was a regular on the popular NBC television comedy The Bob Cummings Show, playing Margaret MacDonald, widowed sister of Cummings's character, the lothario photographer and former World War II pilot Bob Collins. Dwayne Hickman (future star of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis) portrayed her son, Chuck.
She appeared in the 1961 Rawhide episode, "Incident Near Gloomy River". In 1962, she played a dishonest Southern belle in the NBC sitcom Ensign O'Toole with Dean Jones. She appeared in the role of Gertrude Komack on ABC's medical drama Breaking Point in the episode entitled "A Little Anger is a Good Thing".
DeCamp had a recurring role as Helen Marie, the mother of Marlo Thomas's character on the ABC sitcom That Girl from 1966–1970. She appeared in several 1968 episodes of the CBS sitcom Petticoat Junction as Kate Bradley's sister, Helen, filling in as a temporary replacement for the ailing Bea Benaderet as the mother figure to Bradley's three daughters.
DeCamp made several appearances as the mother of Shirley Partridge in The Partridge Family from 1970–1973. She also played The Fairy Godmother in the 1980s TV show, The Memoirs of a Fairy Godmother.
DeCamp played Buck Rogers' mother in flashback scenes of the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century episode "The Guardians".
On July 7, 1946, her Beverly Hills home was damaged when struck by a wing after the experimental XF-11 piloted by Howard Hughes (re-created in the 2004 movie, The Aviator) crashed nearby. Although a piece of the wing and a part of the neighbor's roof landed in DeCamp's bedroom (where she and her husband were sleeping) they sustained no injuries.
Acting
TV
Murder, She Wrote
as Agnes
1984
Movie
Yankee Doodle Dandy
as Nellie Cohan
1942
TV
The Love Boat
as Cynthia Loudon
1977
Movie
13 Ghosts
as Hilda Zorba
1960
TV
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
as Buck's Mother
1979
TV
The Beverly Hillbillies
as Priscilla Rolfe Alden Smith-Standish
1962
TV
The Rockford Files
as Mary Ramsey
1974
TV
Quincy, M.E.
1976
Movie
Jungle Book
as Messua
1942
Movie
Saturday the 14th
as Aunt Lucille
1981
TV
Night Gallery
as Ellen Chase
1970
TV
Simon & Simon
1981
TV
St. Elsewhere
as Amy Jeffries
1982
Movie
Scandal Sheet
as Charlotte Grant
1952
TV
Mannix
1967
TV
Mannix
as Mrs. Henry
1967
Movie
Hold Back the Dawn
as Berta Kurz
1941
TV
Rawhide
as Margaret Fletcher
1959
TV
Rawhide
as Mrs. Armstrong
1959
Movie
Strategic Air Command
as Mrs. Thorne
1955
Movie
Blood on the Sun
as Edith Miller
1945
TV
Petticoat Junction
as Emily Mapes
1963
TV
Petticoat Junction
as Aunt Helen
1963
Movie
Eyes in the Night
as Vera Hoffman
1942