Ginny Simms

Ginny Simms
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Ginny Simms
Radio: South side of the 6400 block of Hollywood Boulevard
Actress | Singer
Born May 25, 1915 in San Antonio, TX
Died April 4, 1994 of heart attack in Desert Hospital, Calif.

Ginny Simms was a big band singer who performed in such films as "Broadway Rhythm" and "Night and Day" and had a national radio show in the 1940s.

Simms earned her initial fame as the lead singer for Kay Kyser's band in the 1930s.

She followed Kyser to Hollywood and made her first three films with his orchestra — "That's Right, You're Wrong" in 1939, "You'll Find Out" in 1940 and "Playmates" in 1941.

Simms went on to do such films as "Here We Go Again" with Fibber McGee and Molly, and Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy in 1942; "Broadway Rhythm" with George Murphy and the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra in 1944; "Shady Lady" with Charles Coburn in 1945; and "Night and Day" with Cary Grant portraying composer Cole Porter in 1946.

Frequently on the Hit Parade with such songs as "Don't Ever Change," Simms got her own network radio show, "The Ginny Simms Show."

She also segued into a second career away from the limelight as a decorator and developer.

Her interest began when she married millionaire hotel magnate Hyatt R. von Dehn, who started the Hyatt hotel chain. She decorated some of his first hotels as well as their Beverly Hills homes until their divorce in 1951.

Simms, who had returned to the concert stage for a few years, retired to Palms Springs in 1962 when she married former Washington state Atty. Gen. Donald W. Eastvold Sr. The couple developed properties and Simms decorated resorts in Palm Springs, Washington, Minnesota and Hawaii, and throughout Mexico and in Spain.

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