Vilma Ebsen

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Vilma Ebsen (b. February 1, 1911, Belleville, Illinois - d. March 12, 2007, Thousand Oaks, California) was an American musical theatre and film actress best known for dancing in Broadway shows and MGM musicals in the 1930s with her more famous brother, Buddy Ebsen.

Ebsen learned to dance at her fathers dance studio in Orlando, Florida in the 1920s. Vilma and Buddy Ebsen moved to New York in 1928 where they formed a vaudeville act. One of their first appearances together was in Eddie Cantor's Ziegfeld production, Whoopee.

When Whoopee closed after a year and a half, Vilma and Buddy Ebsen took their act to Atlantic City, where they caught the eye of celebrity columnist Walter Winchell. A one paragraph rave in Winchell's column lifted the Ebsens from obscurity.

Vilma and Buddy Ebsen performed their dance act on Broadway, as well as around the United States in vaudeville theatres and supper clubs throughout the early 1930s. Some of the Broadway productions they starred in were Flying Colors (1932) and Ziegfeld Follies of 1934. They came to Hollywood in 1935, where Vilma Ebsen starred in one film, playing Sally Burke in Broadway Melody of 1936 (1935).^[1]

After the success of Broadway Melody of 1936, the studio decided to separate the Ebsens. Vilma Ebsen was not interested in accepting Louis B. Mayer's offer to make her "the next Myrna Loy" and moved back to New York with her husband, composer and bandleader Robert Emmett "Bobby" Dolan, whom she had married on June 24, 1933. They had one child together, but later divorced in January 1948. In 1948 she married tennis player Stanley Briggs. They also had a son. ^[2]

Back in New York, she appeared in one more Broadway musical comedy, Between the Devil, with 3 British dancing stars: Jack Buchanan, Evelyn Laye, and Adele Dixon. This show ran from December 22, 1937 until March 12, 1938. She then retired from show business to become a full-time homemaker.

Later, she moved to Pacific Palisades, California, where she operated a dance school with her sister, Helga, partially funded by their brother.