American actress (1914-1996). Born Mary Leta Dorothy Slaton. She was born in the charity ward at New Orleans East Hospital in New Orleans. Her parents were a pair of restaurant servers. They divorced when she was young; her mother's second husband had the last name of Lambour, which she later modified as her stage name.
Lamour worked as a secretary to support the family. She also began entering beauty contests and was named Miss New Orleans in 1931. She and her mother later moved to Chicago, where Dorothy eventually broke into vaudeville and radio -- she even had her own 15-minute musical program on NBC Radio. She moved to Hollywood in 1936 and soon got the lead role in "The Jungle Princess," where she played Ulah, a sarong-wearing jungle beauty -- she spent several years playing jungle natives wearing sarongs and singing songs that got lots of radio airplay.
In 1940, Lamour co-starred in "Road to Singapore," a spoof of her "sarong" movies, which starred Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. The movie was a big hit, and a number of sequels followed, including "Road to Zanzibar," "Road to Morocco," "Road to Utopia," "Road to Rio," "Road to Bali," and "The Road to Hong Kong."
During World War II, she was one of the top sellers of war bonds, bringing in $300 million in bonds and earning the nickname the Bond Bombshell.
After she left Paramount, her film roles got less prominent, and she branched out into television and live theater. She worked dinner theaters for decades, often taking breaks to talk to the audience about her work in film. She worked in TV and theater up 'til a few years before her death in 1996 of a heart attack.
Her films included: "The Jungle Princess," "Swing High, Swing Low," "The Hurricane," "The Big Broadcast of 1938," "Tropic Holiday," "St. Louis Blues," "Johnny Apollo," "Moon Over Burma," "Aloma of the South Seas," "Beyond the Blue Horizon," "Dixie," "And the Angels Sing," "Duffy's Tavern," "My Favorite Brunette," "On Our Merry Way," "The Girl from Manhattan," "Donovan's Reef," and her last film, "Creepshow 2."
Least enjoyable trivia: She almost certainly had sex with J. Edgar Hoover.