Vilma Ebsen

Vilma Ebsen was an |American musical theatre and film actress best known for dancing in Broadway shows and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musicals in the 1930's with her brother Buddy Ebsen. Ebsen was born in Belleville, Illinois. During her childhood, her family relocated to Orlando, Florida. She learned to dance at her father's dance studio in the 1920's, along with her siblings. Vilma and Buddy Ebsen moved to New York City in 1928, where they formed a vaudeville act. One of their early 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, New Jersey, where they caught the eye of celebrity columnist Walter Winchell. A one-paragraph rave review in Winchell's column brought attention to Ebsens. Along with her brother, Ebsen performed a dance act on Broadway, as well as around the United States in vaudeville theaters and supper clubs throughout the early 1930s. The two starred in Broadway productions of Flying Colors (1932) and Ziegfeld Follies of 1934. They moved to Hollywood in 1935, where Vilma appeared as Sally Burke in Broadway Melody of 1936 (1935).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. Back in New York, she appeared in the Broadway musical comedy, Between the Devil, with British dancing stars Jack Buchanan, Evelyn Laye, and Adele Dixon. This show ran from December 22, 1937 until March 12, 1938. Ebsen then retired from show business to become a full-time homemaker. She and Dolan moved to Pacific Palisades, California in 1941. They had one child, a son named Robert, and later divorced in January 1948. Later that year, she married tennis player Stanley Briggs. They also had a