Betty Jaynes (actress)

The daughter of Louis C. Schultz and Stella Schultz,[2] Jaynes was born in Greeneville, Tennessee, but she attended the Starrett School for Girls[3] in Chicago. She has a brother, Robert, and two sisters, Lorraine and Marion.[4]

Jaynes made her concert debut when she was 15, performing with pianist Janet Gunn at Orchestra Hall in Chicago.[5] At the same age, she made a "sensational debut" with the Chicago City Opera Company in La boheme. In a Life magazine article, she said she would "quit school and consider movies."[6] Her radio debut also occurred when she was 15, as she sang on The Ford Sunday Evening Hour on CBS in January 1937.[7]

On December 9, 1936, Probate Judge John F. O'Connell in Chicago approved Jaynes' contracts with MGM and a concert booking company. Her status as a minor required court approval, with her mother as her guardian. The MGM contract guaranteed $250 to $1,300 per week plus additional payment when she made films. The booking contract guaranteed $1,000 per concert.[8]

She began working in Hollywood on April 1, 1937.[9] She appeared as Molly Moran in Babes in Arms in 1939, then in a series of minor parts in seven MGM movies through 1944 including Meet the People, starring Lucille Ball. Her last major acting role was in 1952, in an I Love Lucy episode, "The Operetta".

Jaynes married actor and budding baritone Douglas McPhail in June 1938. They had a daughter, and were divorced in 1941; McPhail committed suicide in 1944.[10] She married a second time in 1943, to Bill Roberts, who had been a singer for Tommy Dorsey.[11] She died in Santa Monica, California in November 2018 at the age of 97.[12]

• Betty Jaynes at IMDb