Gale Storm April 5, 1922 - June 27, 2009 

Gale Storm died on June 27, 2009 and not very many people noticed.  Not many people remember or care that she stared in the now 60-year-old TV series, My Little Margie.  In the good old days, the ONLY three television networks NBC, CBS, and ABC aired summer replacement programs for their hit TV shows.  These shows were not ready for prime time, but they kept the audience tuned in until the big shows came back in the fall. 

The TV series, My Little Margie started life in 1952 as a summer replacement for the hit TV show I Love Lucy.  My Little Margie became a big hit, and ran on prime time from 1952 to 1955. Gale Storm was My Little Margie; she was cute, crazy, and funny and I loved her.  In 1952, I was only five years old and I don’t think we had a TV set, so it wasn’t until 1956 or 57 that I became a fan of Gale Storm. 

I hated going to school after 1956, because starting every weekday morning at 9:00am the networks would play reruns of their old TV series, and My Little Margie was one of them.  I would think up things to tell my mother why I was too sick to go to school, and had to stay home.  How could I go to school and miss all this good entertainment?   

I have not seen one story about the death of Gale Storm.  She began her career at 17, leaving Texas for Hollywood in 1939, acting on the CBS radio.   My Little Margie was not her only hit show; she had a second hit TV series, Oh! Susanna, that ran from 1956 to 1960.   In addition, she played in over 50 movies television from 1940 to 1989. She was also a recording star with hit records and performed in Las Vegas.  Gale Storm had three Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, for radio, TV and recording. 

I’m upset that because she died the same week as Michael Jackson died, I found no mention of her passing on the same television networks that she performed on for so many years.  Television, as usual, has overplayed Michael Jackson, to the point of being nauseating. 

Repeatedly, we hear and see even more depressing stuff about Michael Jackson, his children, his tortured life, and now his tortured death.  Everyday unimportant crap is broadcast on TV, as if we needed to know all the painful details.  Just like Princess Diana, they are not going to let this poor guy die in peace.   

Anyway, I loved Gale Storm, and I wanted you to know something about her.  She was part of my childhood, and maybe part of the reason I did so badly in school.