She recovered, but sustained a deformed foot and limp. (This was before the polio vaccine had been developed which brought an end to polio in the United States.) Her mother provided extensive care for her, which included regular therapeutic massage and a strict exercise program. The only known treatment was bed rest and sometimes more extreme care if the child was severely compromised. When Fanny was eighteen months old, she was stricken with polio (infantile paralysis). She had an elder sister, eight years her senior, Elizabeth, known as 'Bessie'. Early life įrances 'Fanny' Rose Shore was born on February 29, 1916, to Russian-Jewish immigrant shopkeepers, Anna ( née Stein) and Solomon Shore, in Winchester, Tennessee. Stylistically, Shore was compared to two singers who followed her in the mid-to-late 1940s and early 1950s, Jo Stafford and Patti Page. TV Guide ranked her at number 16 on their list of the top 50 television stars of all time. She starred in her own music and variety shows from 1951 through 1963 and hosted two talk shows in the 1970s. She had a string of eighty charted popular hits, spanning from 1940 to 1957, and after appearing in a handful of feature films, she went on to a four-decade career in American television.

She became the first singer of her era to achieve huge solo success.

She achieved even greater success a decade later in television, mainly as the host of a series of variety programs for the Chevrolet automobile company.Īfter failing singing auditions for the bands of Benny Goodman, and both Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey, Shore struck out on her own. She rose to prominence as a recording artist during the Big Band era. Dinah Shore (born Frances 'Fanny' Rose Shore Febru– February 24, 1994) was an American singer, actress, and television personality, and the top-charting female vocalist of the 1940s.

In Want of a Wife by Jo Goodman