--- name: "Alice Faye" canonical: "https://film.one/person/alice-faye" roles: ["Actor"] born: "5 May 1915" died: "9 May 1998" reviewed_on_fi1m: 2 average_fi1m_score: 67 average_as: "actor" average_over: 2 updated: "2026-09-19T23:42:42.085133+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Alice Faye Actor. Born 5 May 1915 in New York City, New York, USA. Died 9 May 1998. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 5 May 1915, New York City, New York, USA - **Died:** 9 May 1998 - **Also known as:** Alice Jeane Leppert, Alice Jeanne Faye - **Frequently works with:** [Don Ameche](https://film.one/person/don-ameche.md), [Henry King](https://film.one/person/henry-king.md), [Lamar Trotti](https://film.one/person/lamar-trotti.md), [Tyrone Power](https://film.one/person/tyrone-power.md) - **Average Fi1m score:** 67, as actor, over 2 titles - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Faye, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q254603, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0269647/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/94928 ## Fi1m on Alice Faye > Alice Faye had a low, warm contralto and a gift for making a good girl worth watching, and 20th Century-Fox built a decade of musicals around both. She was nearly always better than the writing, and the writing rarely rose to meet her. Put Alice Faye in a saloon with a song and the whole picture changes. In *In Old Chicago* (1938) she plays Belle Fawcett, a singer the plot needs mostly as something for Tyrone Power's Dion to want. J. Peverell Marley shoots her through cigar smoke and gaslight so that her dresses glow and the men behind her fall half into shadow, and Royer puts her in ostrich plumes and satin, which does most of the characterising the script forgot to. Then she sings, in that low, husky contralto, and for a couple of minutes the O'Leary family melodrama stops mattering. She is warmer than the part deserves. That was the habit of her career: she gave more than the writing asked for, and the writing seldom asked for much. She came out of vaudeville and the Broadway chorus, appeared in the 1931 *George White's Scandals* and moved to film with its screen version in 1934. Darryl F. Zanuck made her 20th Century-Fox's leading musical star from the middle of the decade, and the studio found a shape for her and kept to it: the wholesome girl who sings, moving up in the world, with Tyrone Power or Don Ameche waiting at the top of the stairs. *Alexander's Ragtime Band* (1938) gave her Irving Berlin. *Hello, Frisco, Hello* (1943) gave her "You'll Never Know", which she introduced and which became a standard. *The Gang's All Here* (1943) put her in Technicolor for Busby Berkeley beside Carmen Miranda. We have reviewed only the Chicago picture, so we will not pretend to weigh the others; the pattern is plain enough from the titles. The pattern is also the limit. She was good at songs, at romance and at comic timing, and less convincing when a film asked her to carry drama without a number to fall back on. *Fallen Angel* (1945), her attempt at exactly that, reached the screen with much of her part cut, and she left Fox over it and more or less left features altogether. Henry King, who directed her twice, understood the arrangement: keep her in light, keep her near the piano. In *In Old Chicago* we sat through the brothers' quarrels with our patience thinning, and every time Belle came back into the saloon we found we had sat up. That is not nothing. It is also not something the films themselves deserve much credit for. She spent the following years on the radio with her husband Phil Harris, from 1948 to 1954, and came back to the screen only now and then. Asked about it later, she said: "When I stopped making pictures, it didn't bother me because there were so many things I hadn't done. I had never learned to run a house. I didn't know how to cook. I didn't know how to shop." It is hard to think of a star who left more cheerfully. See *In Old Chicago* for Alice Brady and for the fire, and stay in your seat when Faye starts to sing. ## Biography Alice Faye (born Alice Jeanne Leppert) was an American actress and singer. She began her career in the chorus of George White's Scandals in the early 1930s and made her film debut in the 1934 adaptation of the show. A star at 20th Century-Fox in the 1930s and 1940s, she appeared in musicals including *In Old Chicago* (1938) as Belle Fawcett, *Alexander's Ragtime Band* (1938), *The Gang's All Here* (1943) and *Hello, Frisco, Hello* (1943), in which she introduced the song "You'll Never Know". She also starred in the drama *Fallen Angel* (1945). Faye retired from films at the height of her career and later worked in radio. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (2) - *Alexander's Ragtime Band* (1938), Fi1m 70, as Stella Kirby — [page](https://film.one/film/alexanders-ragtime-band.md) - *In Old Chicago* (1938), Fi1m 64, as Belle Fawcett — [page](https://film.one/film/in-old-chicago.md) ## Complete filmography (41) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Hollywood Singing and Dancing: A Musical History - The 1940s: Stars, Stripes and Singing* (2009), as (archive footage) - *The Magic of Lassie* (1978), as The Waitress (Alice) - *Every Girl Should Have One* (1978), as Kathy - *The Love Boat* (1977), series, as Betty Layton - *Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood* (1976), as Secretary at Gate - *State Fair* (1962), as Melissa Frake - *Fallen Angel* (1945), as June Mills - *Take It or Leave It* (1944), as (archive footage) (uncredited) - *Four Jills in a Jeep* (1944), as Alice Faye - *Wing and a Prayer* (1944), as (archive footage) - *The Gang's All Here* (1943), as Edie Allen - *Hello, Frisco, Hello* (1943), as Trudy Evans - *Week-End in Havana* (1941), as Nan Spencer - *The Great American Broadcast* (1941), as Vicki Adams - *That Night in Rio* (1941), as Baroness Cecilia Duarte - *Tin Pan Alley* (1940), as Katie Blane - *Lillian Russell* (1940), as Lillian Russell - *Little Old New York* (1940), as Pat O'Day - *Barricade* (1939), as Emmy Jordan - *Hollywood Cavalcade* (1939), as Molly Adair Hayden - *Rose of Washington Square* (1939), as Rose Sargent - *Tail Spin* (1939), as Trixie Lee - *Alexander's Ragtime Band* (1938), as Stella Kirby — Fi1m 70, [page](https://film.one/film/alexanders-ragtime-band.md) - *In Old Chicago* (1938), as Belle Fawcett — Fi1m 64, [page](https://film.one/film/in-old-chicago.md) - *Sally, Irene and Mary* (1938), as Sally Day - *You're a Sweetheart* (1937), as Betty Bradley - *Wake Up and Live* (1937), as Alice Huntley - *You Can't Have Everything* (1937), as Judith Poe Wells - *On the Avenue* (1937), as Mona Merrick - *Cinema Circus* (1937), as Pert Kelton - *Stowaway* (1936), as Susan Parker - *Sing, Baby, Sing* (1936), as Joan Warren - *Poor Little Rich Girl* (1936), as Jerry Dolan - *King of Burlesque* (1936), as Pat Doran - *Music Is Magic* (1935), as Peggy Harper - *Every Night at Eight* (1935), as Dixie Foley / Dixie Dean - *George White's 1935 Scandals* (1935), as Honey - *365 Nights in Hollywood* (1934), as Alice Perkins - *She Learned About Sailors* (1934), as Jean Legoi - *Now I'll Tell* (1934), as Peggy Warren - *George White's Scandals* (1934), as Kitty Donnelly / Mona Vale ## Gallery - ![Publicity photo of Alice Faye for the film Music Is Magic, also known as Ball of Fire. See also film still. No copyright notice. (1935)](https://film.one/media/person/1229988/gallery-a97120e38a0a.jpg) Publicity photo of Alice Faye for the film Music Is Magic, also known as Ball of Fire. See also film still. No copyright notice. (1935) — Fox Film Corporation, Gene Nornman, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Alice_Faye_-_1935.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Publicity photo of Alice Faye. See film still. (1944)](https://film.one/media/person/1229988/gallery-3d4edb2998e3.jpg) Publicity photo of Alice Faye. See film still. (1944) — News service, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Alice_Faye_-_1944.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Alice Faye](https://film.one/media/person/1229988/gallery-74d9d6fb1e15.jpg) Alice Faye — Harry Warnecke/Bob Cranston/New York Daily News Color Studio, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/Alice_Faye_NY_Sunday_News_1936.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Publicity photo of Alice Faye for Argentinean Magazine. (Printed in USA) (1934)](https://film.one/media/person/1229988/gallery-38683ce0fd88.jpg) Publicity photo of Alice Faye for Argentinean Magazine. (Printed in USA) (1934) — produced by Fox Film Corporation and supplied to CINE MUNDIAL magazine, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/Alice_Faye_Argentinean_Magazine_AD.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Alice Faye](https://film.one/media/person/1229988/gallery-81594615a2c0.jpg) Alice Faye — Image via TMDB - ![Alice Faye](https://film.one/media/person/1229988/gallery-b7be640ab09f.jpg) Alice Faye — Image via TMDB - ![Publicity photo of Alice Faye for Argentinean Magazine. (Printed in USA) (1935)](https://film.one/media/person/1229988/gallery-21fd3f18eb5d.jpg) Publicity photo of Alice Faye for Argentinean Magazine. (Printed in USA) (1935) — produced by Fox Film Corporation and supplied to CINELANDIA magazine, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/Alice_Faye_Argentinean_Magazine_AD_2.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/alice-faye