Nancy Bolduc Gloria DeHaven, 91; was actress in 1940s Hollywood musicals

Stonington — Nancy S. (Spellman) Bolduc, 83, of Elaine Street, Pawcatuck, passed away on Sunday, July 31, 2016, at The Westerly Hospital. She was the beloved wife for 52 years of Henry P. Bolduc Jr., who predeceased her.

Mrs. Bolduc was born in Pawcatuck, daughter of John F. and Margaret Spellman. She dedicated and donated much of her life to St. Michael parish. She will be remembered as a loving wife to her late husband and a loving mother and grandmother who enjoyed spending time with her family.

She leaves four sons, daughters-in-law and their families: Henry P. Bolduc III and his wife, Janet, and their children, Caitlin, Lucas and Trevor, all of Mystic, John F. Bolduc and his wife, Linda, and their children, Jake, Seth, Elizabeth and Ryan, as well as Michael J. Bolduc and his wife, Lisa, and their children, Keegan and Kaleigh, all of Pawcatuck, and David N. Bolduc and his wife, Ashley, and their children, Madison, Brayden and Tyson of Livermore, Calif.; and two daughters and their families, Kathleen M. Henson and her husband, Timothy, and their children, Shealin and Michael, all of Westerly, and Elizabeth Garrett and her daughter, Makenna, of Hollis, N.H., and grandson, Jason Bolduc of Westerly. Nancy is also survived by two sisters, Mary Stanton of Saugus, Mass., and Marguerite Sieczkiewicz of Westerly; and many nieces and nephews.

In addition to her parents and husband, she was predeceased by twin daughters, Peggy and Patty; a grandchild, Joseph; a great-grandchild, Felecia; and four siblings, Dot Spellman, John “Bub” Spellman, former Stonington Selectman James P. Spellman, and Kathleen Manfredi.

Visiting hours are omitted. Relatives and friends are invited to attend a Funeral Liturgy at noon on Wednesday in St. Mary’s Church, 95 Main St., Stonington. Interment will follow at St. Michael Cemetery, Pawcatuck.

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to St. Michael Capital Campaign, 60 Liberty St., Pawcatuck, CT 06379, in Mrs. Bolduc’s memory.

Gaffney-Dolan Funeral Home, 59 Spruce St., Westerly, is in charge of the arrangements.

For online condolences, please visit www.gaffneydolanfuneralhome.com.

Gloria DeHaven, a pert actress who debuted at 11 in Charlie Chaplin’s silent-movie masterpiece “Modern Times,” sang and danced her way through musicals starring Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire, and bestowed on Frank Sinatra his first onscreen kiss, died July 30 in Las Vegas. She was 91.

The cause was complications from a stroke, said a daughter, Faith Fincher-Finkelstein. DeHaven had moved to Las Vegas in 2003 after years in Beverly Hills, Calif., and New York.

DeHaven was the daughter of vaudevillians and enjoyed a long career propelled by her warm singing voice and fetching looks. Her forte was romantic musical comedy — Technicolor fare in which her golden red hair glistened for the camera — but she seldom had dazzling solo showcase numbers that might have boosted her to higher echelons of stardom.

She remained a solid journeyman performer who held her own opposite charismatic entertainers such as Judy Garland, Van Johnson, Mickey Rooney, Red Skelton, Donald O’Connor and Lucille Ball.

DeHaven was still in her teens when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Hollywood’s most prestigious studio, began grooming her for featured roles in lavishly produced musicals such as “Thousands Cheer” starring Kelly and “Best Foot Forward” (both 1943) with Ball and June Allyson.

She subsequently worked on MGM pictures such as “Two Girls and a Sailor” with Johnson and Allyson and “Broadway Rhythm” (both 1944) with George Murphy, and she bussed Sinatra that year in “Step Lively,” loosely based on the Marx Brothers romp “Room Service.” DeHaven was relegated to secondary roles in finer MGM fare, including “Summer Stock” (1950), in which she played Garland’s stagestruck sister.

DeHaven earned higher billing at rival studios — 20th Century Fox and Universal International — but in increasingly undistinguished pictures, among them “Yes Sir, That’s My Baby” (1949) with O’Connor, “I’ll Get By” (1950) with June Haver and William Lundigan, “Down Among the Sheltering Palms” (1953) with Lundigan and Mitzi Gaynor, and “So This Is Paris” (1954), the last a misguided attempt to plant Tony Curtis in a musical.

DeHaven’s career dwindled as the musical faded in popularity. She transitioned to stage and television work, proving adaptable to dramatic anthology shows (“Robert Montgomery Presents”), westerns (“The Rifleman,” “Wagon Train”) and series including “Quincy M.E.,” “Fantasy Island,” “B.J. and the Bear” and “Murder, She Wrote.”

DeHaven played a rotten-tothe-core schemer in the soap opera “As the World Turns” in the late 1960s and years later popped up as a trailer-park denizen in another soap, “Ryan’s Hope.” She gamely sent up the genre on the Norman Lear-produced “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman” (1976-77) as a bisexual CB radio aficionado named Annie “Tippytoes” Wylie.

Her final movie role was as Jack Lemmon’s love interest in “Out to Sea” (1997), a tepid cruise ship comedy co-starring Walter Matthau.

“If you don’t stretch yourself in this business, you’re dead,” DeHaven told the Los Angeles Times in 1984. She quipped of her sheer endurance in an unforgiving profession such as show business, “As Ingrid Bergman once said, ‘There are only two things you need in life to be successful: good health and a bad memory.’”

Gloria Mildred DeHaven was born in Los Angeles on July 23, 1925, the youngest of three children of Carter DeHaven and the former Flora Parker.

Her parents divorced, and she was raised by her mother, whom she portrayed in the 1950 MGM musical “Three Little Words.” In that biopic of Tin Pan Alley songwriters Bert Kalmar (Astaire) and Harry Ruby (Skelton), DeHaven sang the standard “Who’s Sorry Now?”

DeHaven’s father was working as an assistant director on “Modern Times” (1936), Chaplin’s final silent comedy feature film, when she made an auspicious visit to the set one day. Chaplin unexpectedly needed two girls to play the young, waterfront urchin sisters of star Paulette Goddard.

“All we had to do was wear tattered clothes, eat bananas and do big takes,” DeHaven later told the Toronto Star.