Jessica Dragonette

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Jessica Dragonette was a singer who was born in India on St. Valentine's Day, 1900, according to the Social Security Death Index (although this is not otherwise independently confirmable and she was always reticent regarding her age), and later raised in a convent there as an orphan.

She began singing on radio in 1926. Jessica received the title "Princess of Song", from an admiring press. That moniker would be utilized to publicize future concert events, as she crossed the country, performing for appreciative audiences.

In 1939, Jessica provided the singing voice of Princess Glory, in the full color animated motion picture, Gulliver’s Travels. This was to be her only movie credit. A segment had previously been filmed for The Big Broadcast of 1936, with the stipulation that she would have final say regarding its inclusion in the picture. She ultimately decided to have the spot cut from the film; Paramount Studios abided by her wishes.

Much of her energy during World War II was devoted to charities benefiting our armed services. Her dedication to duty even earned her an honorary commission as a Colonel, along with numerous awards from the Army and Navy. When pressed by media to discuss wartime politics, Jessica would politely respond that as a singer, she would gladly comment about music. She once remarked that The Star Spangled Banner never had more meaning for her than it did during the Second World War. She was unselfish in performing frequently for the troops and selling a record number of war bonds.

She and her husband, Nicholas Meredith Turner, were devout Roman Catholics, who received several Catholic and papal honours, and who were married at St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York by their friend, Francis Cardinal Spellman on June 28, 1947.

Her autobiography was called Faith is a Song.

She died in 1980 at around 80 years of age, and was survived by her husband and a sister, Rosalinda (Mrs Joseph Loftus) who was frequently known as Nadea, a name she preferred.

In 1940 she was painted by the Swiss-born American artist Adolfo Müller-Ury (1862-1947), and the portrait now hangs at Georgian Court College, where Jessica went to school. Müller-Ury became a close friend of the singer, and painted her several times, his last being in 1946 in which she wears a gold fez. Muller-Ury also painted a portrait of Nadea Dragonette Loftus in 1942.

In the mid-1950s, David Gottlieb, the president of the leading pinball game manufacturer, hired Jessica Dragonette to appear at coin machine functions promoting a pinball game called Dragonette. However, the game had nothing to do with Ms. Dragonette. It was spoof of a leading TV show of the period called "Dragnet".