Gertrude Niesen
Gertrude Niesen (July 8, 1911 – March 27, 1975)[citation needed] was an American torch singer, actress, comedian, and songwriter who achieved popular success in musicals and films in the 1930s and 1940s.Niesen was born aboard ship as her Swedish father and Russian mother returned from a vacation in Europe.[2] Niesen began singing as a career in the early 1930s,[citation needed] performing on radio and in night clubs.[3]: 303 She left The Ex-Lax Big Show in the summer of 1935 to sing leads in musical productions of the St. Louis Municipal Opera Theatre.[8] The couple divorced but remarried in 1954, remaining married until Niesen's death in Kaiser Permanente Hospital[1] in Hollywood, California in 1975, aged 63, after a long illness.