Martha Raye Bio
Martha Raye was an American comic actress and singer who performed in movies, and later on television. She also acted in plays, including Broadway.
She was honored in 1969 at the Academy Awards as the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award recipient for her volunteer efforts and services to the troops.
Martha Raye Age
Martha was born on August 27, 1916, and died on October 19, 1994, at the age of 78 years old.
Martha Raye Family
Raye’s life as a singer and comedic performer began in very early childhood. She was born at St. James Hospital in Butte, Montana, as Margy Reed; some sources give her real name as Maggie O’Reed.
Her father, Peter F. Reed Jr., was an Irish immigrant; her mother, Maybelle Hazel (Hooper) Reed, was raised in Milwaukee and Montana. Her parents were performing in a local vaudeville theatre as “Reed and Hooper” when their daughter was born.
Two days later, her mother was performing again. Martha first appeared in their act when she was three years old. She later performed with her brother “Bud“, and the children became so popular that their parents’ act was renamed “Margie and Bud.”
Martha Raye Spouse
Raye’s personal life was complex and emotionally tumultuous. She was married seven times.
Raye was a devout Methodist who regularly attended church, read the Bible daily, and even taught Sunday school classes. Because her religious views were often misconstrued throughout her life, she was noted for having said, “One paper says I’m Catholic and the other says I’m Jewish.
I guess that’s fitting because as a Methodist I’m meant to be undetermined some of the time”.
Her engagement with orchestra leader Johnny Torrence was announced in June 1936.
Less than two months later she commented, “They tell me I’ve gone Hollywood already because I got engaged to Johnny Torrence one day and broke it off the next.”
She was married to make-up artist Hamilton “Buddy” Westmorefrom May 30, 1937, until September 1937, filing for divorce on the basis of extreme cruelty; to composer-conductor David Rose from October 8, 1938, to May 19, 1941.
To Neal Langfrom May 25, 1941 to February 3, 1944; to Nick Condosfrom February 22, 1944 to June 17, 1953; to Edward T. Begley from April 21, 1954 to October 6, 1956; to Robert O’Sheafrom November 7, 1956 to December 1, 1960; and to Mark Harrisfrom September 25, 1991 until her death in 1994.
She had one child, a daughter, Melodye Condos (born July 26, 1944), with fourth husband Condos.
Martha Raye Career
In the early 1930s, Raye was a band vocalist with the Paul Ash and Boris Morros orchestras. She made her first film appearance in 1934 in a band short titled A Nite in the Nite Club. In 1936, she was signed for comic roles by Paramount Pictures and made her first picture for Paramount. Her first feature film was Rhythm on the Range with crooner Bing Crosby.
Later career
In 1970, she portrayed Boss Witch, the “Queen of all Witchdom”, in the feature film Pufnstuf for Sid and Marty Krofft. This led to her being cast as villainess Benita Bizarre in The Bugaloos (1970), which the Kroffts produced the same year.
She often appeared as a guest on other programs, particularly those which often featured older performers as guest stars, such as ABC’s The Love Boat, and also on variety programs, including the short-lived The Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Show. She appeared from the third to the ninth seasons as Carrie Sharples on Alice, making two or three appearances a season.
She made guest appearances or did cameo roles in such series as Murder, She Wrote on CBS and The Andy Williams Show and McMillan & Wife, both on NBC. She appeared again as Agatha for the six-episode run of the retooled McMillan, taking over for Nancy Walker, who had left the series. Her last film appearance was as an incontinent airline passenger in the disaster film The Concorde … Airport ’79
Martha Raye Nurse
Investigating Claims That Martha Raye Was a Nurse in Vietnam
Born in 1916, Martha “Maggie” Raye started her show business career by taking the stage with her parents, a pair of small-time vaudevillians, at the age of three. She made her name as a big band vocalist in the early 1930s, which led to numerous film and national radio appearances over the course of the decade.
In 1942 she volunteered to serve in the USO, entertaining American troops in Europe, North Africa, and the South Pacific over the course of World War II. During the 1950s she sang, danced, joked her way from military base to military base across Korea. Between 1965 and 1973 she made numerous tours of Southeast Asia to entertain U.S. soldiers fighting in the Vietnam War.
In a viral tale circulating online since 2010, a purported eyewitness recounts how entertainer Martha Raye took on the role of combat nurse to help save wounded soldiers in the field during a USO tour of Vietnam war zone in 1967. Though a civilian, she is supposedly the only woman buried in the Ft. Bragg Special Forces cemetery. In this article, we examine the veracity of these claims.
Whether or not she was actually a trained or licensed nurse is a matter of some dispute, however. The AP story referenced above described Raye as a “former nurse.” A subsequent article published in 1970 went so far as to state that she had been a registered nurse since 1936 and actually served in that capacity during World War II.
It appears this information came from Raye herself, who was quoted as saying, “I went as a nurse but, being an entertainer, could do both.”
In her biography of Raye, Take it from the Big Mouth: The Life of Martha Raye, author Jean Pitrone writes that while Raye routinely told people she had worked as a nurse’s aide at Cedars of Lebanon (now Cedars-Sinai) Hospital in her youth and “boasted of being a registered nurse” as an adult, in reality, she was neither a registered nor a practical nurse.
Martha Raye Death/Cause of Death
Her final years were plagued by ill-health. She suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and had lost both legs in 1993 from poor circulation.
While in poor health and resting in the hospital bed that had to be placed in her home, Martha and husband Mark Harris (who, because of their controversial May/December relationship, became frequent guests on the popular Howard Stern radio program) moved into a hotel after their home was completely destroyed by the 1994 earthquake.
Raye died in Los Angeles at 78 of pneumonia on October 19, 1994, after a long history of cardiovascular disease.
In appreciation of her work with the USO during World War II and subsequent wars, special consideration was given to bury her in Arlington National Cemetery on her death. However, based upon her request, she was buried with full military honors in the Fort Bragg, North Carolina, post cemetery as an honorary colonel in the U.S. Marines and an honorary lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army.
She is the only civilian buried at this location who receives military honors each Veterans Day.
Raye has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame—one for motion pictures at 6251 Hollywood Boulevard and the other for television at 6547 Hollywood Blvd.
Martha Raye Movie and TV Shows
1. Wisecracks (Movie)
2. Alice (TV Show)
3. The Love Boat (TV Show)
4. The Concorde–Airport ’79 (Movie)
5 McMillan and Wife (TV Show)
6. Love, American Style (TV Show)
7. The Phynx (Movie)
8. Pufnstuf (Movie)
9. The Judy Garland Show (TV Show)
10. Jumbo (Movie)
11. Monsieur Verdoux (Movie)
12. Pin-Up Girl (Movie)
13. Four Jills In A Jeep (Movie)
14. Keep ‘Em Flying (Movie)
15. Navy Blues (Movie)
16. Hellzapoppin’ (Movie)
17. The Farmer’s Daughter (Movie)
18. The Boys From Syracuse (Movie)
19. Never Say Die (Movie)
20. $1,000 A Touchdown (Movie)
21. College Swing (Movie)
22. Tropic Holiday (Movie)
23. Give Me A Sailor (Movie)
24. Hideaway Girl (Movie)
25. Mountain Music (Movie)
26. Double Or Nothing (Movie)
27. Waikiki Wedding (Movie)
28. Artists & Models (Movie)
29. The Big Broadcast Of 1937 (Movie)
30. Rhythm On The Range (Movie)
31. The Bugaloos (TV Show
Martha Raye Dentures
Actress Martha Raye filed a $10 million defamation suit. Raye, former Broadway star and singer now known for her denture cream commercials, as mentioned in an opening monologue Letterman did March 5 on the ‘Late Night With David Letterman’ show, the suit contends.