Dolly Dawn was a composer, songwriter ("Keep Dreaming"), author, conductor and singer. Theresa Maria Stabile was born on Feb. 3, 1916, in Newark and grew up in Montclair, N.J. Both her parents were Italian immigrants and her father ran a restaurant, among other jobs. Her cousin was the bandleader Dick Stabile. At 14, she won an amateur contest that Hall held in Newark. He shook her hand, but had forgotten her a year or two later when she showed up at the Taft Hotel in Manhattan, where his band regularly played. With the regular female vocalist about to leave, Ms. Dawn auditioned and got the job. She was known at the time as Billie Starr. Mr. Hall and Harriet Mencken, a writer on The New York Journal-American, came up with Dolly Dawn. "She's as fresh as the dawn and as dimpled as a doll," the newspaperwoman said, according to an article in Radio Guide in 1937. Miss Dawn never stopped hating the name, which she thought made her sound like a stripper. After six months of musical training, she began singing with Hall's band in July 1935, which every day but Sunday was broadcast nationally on CBS radio from the Taft Hotel at noon. The show's tagline: "Dance With Romance." Her relationship with Hall and his wife was so close that they formally adopted her when she was 19. In a ceremony on July 4, 1941, he turned his band over to her and became her manager. A popular part of the band's performance had become her appearing with just seven musicians in a group she named Dawn Patrol, after a newspaper column Ed Sullivan wrote called "Along the Dawn Patrol." Sullivan, a friend, gave her permission.
Dolly Dawn was a composer, songwriter ("Keep Dreaming"), author, conductor and singer. Theresa Maria Stabile was born on Feb. 3, 1916, in Newark and grew up in Montclair, N.J. Both her parents were Italian immigrants and her father ran a restaurant, among other jobs. Her cousin was the bandleader Dick Stabile. At 14, she won an amateur contest that Hall held in Newark. He shook her hand, but had forgotten her a year or two later when she showed up at the Taft Hotel in Manhattan, where his band regularly played. With the regular female vocalist about to leave, Ms. Dawn auditioned and got the job. She was known at the time as Billie Starr. Mr. Hall and Harriet Mencken, a writer on The New York Journal-American, came up with Dolly Dawn. "She's as fresh as the dawn and as dimpled as a doll," the newspaperwoman said, according to an article in Radio Guide in 1937. Miss Dawn never stopped hating the name, which she thought made her sound like a stripper. After six months of musical training, she began singing with Hall's band in July 1935, which every day but Sunday was broadcast nationally on CBS radio from the Taft Hotel at noon. The show's tagline: "Dance With Romance." Her relationship with Hall and his wife was so close that they formally adopted her when she was 19. In a ceremony on July 4, 1941, he turned his band over to her and became her manager. A popular part of the band's performance had become her appearing with just seven musicians in a group she named Dawn Patrol, after a newspaper column Ed Sullivan wrote called "Along the Dawn Patrol." Sullivan, a friend, gave her permission.
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