Janet Blair | Film and TV actress, 85

Janet Blair, 85, who appeared in 1940s movie musicals and comedies, then turned to the stage and television, died Feb. 19 in Santa Monica, Calif., of complications from pneumonia, her children said.

Ms. Blair, who was born in Altoona, was singing with Hal Kemp's band at the Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles in 1941 when she was spotted by a talent scout from Columbia Pictures. When Kemp died in a traffic accident shortly afterward and the musicians decided to disband, Ms. Blair signed a contract with Columbia for $100 a week.

Her early movie roles caught the eye of Rosalind Russell, who recommended her for the title role in the 1942 comedy My Sister Eileen. She won praise for her portrayal of Russell's beautiful but trouble-prone sister, and her roles quickly improved.

She starred opposite George Raft in the gangster movie Broadway, and costarred with Cary Grant and a dancing caterpillar in 1944's comedy-fantasy Once Upon a Time. She appeared opposite Red Skelton in the 1946 hit The Fuller Brush Man.

Columbia dropped Ms. Blair after the 1948 swashbuckler The Black Arrow, and she moved on to theater and television.

She took on the Mary Martin role in a touring version of South Pacific, with more than 1,200 performances in three years.

From the late 1940s through the 1950s, she appeared in numerous television shows. In the early '70s, she played Henry Fonda's wife in the series The Smith Family. - AP