Sally Starr (actress)

Sally Starr (born Sarah Kathryn Sturm; January 23, 1909 – May 5, 1996) was an American theatrical and film actress known for her work during the 1920s and 1930s. A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, she was discovered while visiting the set of Ted Lewis's show as a teenager.

History
Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as Sarah Kathryn Sturm on January 23, 1909, she was a daughter of Harry and Sarah E. Sturm. As a toddler, she resided with her parents at the home of her paternal grandparents, Henry and Lotta Sturm, in Pittsburgh's 11th ward, where her father and grandfather were both hardware merchants and her paternal aunt was a school teacher. A decade later, she and her five-year-old brother, Raymond, were living with their parents at their own home in Pittsburgh's 10th ward. Her father was employed that year as a laundry superintendent.

While on a summer break from her studies at Pittsburgh's Peabody High School, she was sent to New York by her parents to visit her maternal grandmother, Mrs. Emma Imhoff, and was noticed as she spontaneously danced in the wings to the music of a Ted Lewis show rehearsal, having been invited to that rehearsal by a friend. Recruited by the show's director, she was subsequently chaperoned by her grandmother, who accompanied her as she toured with the Lewis show chorus. Freqeuently compared to Clara Bow, Sturm made her debut in Lewis' Frolics, and then also appeared in George White's Scandals of 1924. After making her move to Hollywood, she signed a contract with MGM.

While in Hollywood, she became better known as "Sally Starr," and performed leading roles in So This Is College (1929), The Woman Racket (1930), Not So Dumb (1930), Personality (1930), Pardon My Gun (1930) and For The Love o' Lil (1930). She was signed among the cast of Swing High (1930), a production of Pathe Pictures. Starr also continued her theatrical work after her motion picture career began, performing with Eleanor Powell and George Hassell in The Optimists, staged at the Century Roof Theater in January 1928. The same year she was cast with Elliott Nugent, Robert Montgomery, and Phyllis Crane in So This Is College.

The actress continued to spend summers with her family in Pittsburgh. In 1936 she was hired by Paramount Pictures for short subjects filmed in New York. Later that year she was signed by New York-based comedy-shorts studio Educational Pictures. Although she was in her late twenties at the time, she still projected a fresh-faced youth and became Educational's all-purpose ingenue, appearing opposite several of the studio's resident comedians including Bert Lahr, Charles Kemper, Danny Kaye, and the team of Herman Timberg, Jr. and Pat Rooney, Jr. She almost certainly would have continued at Educational if the company hadn't discontinued production in 1938. When the studio closed, Starr retired from the screen.

In 1958, Starr returned to the stage, performing in  Bemardine at the Pittsburgh Playhouse in June of that year.

Under the name Sally Starr Cary, she married John F. Kovacevich on May 1, 1959, in Miami Beach, Florida.

Death and interment
Starr succumbed to heart disease at her home in South Park Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania on May 5, 1996. She was buried as "Sally (Mrs. John F.) Kovacevich" in the Garden of Devotion (lot 111-D, space 4) at Jefferson Memorial Park, which is located south of Pittsburgh in the community of Pleasant Hills, Pennsylvania.

Selected filmography

 * The Man Trap (1917)
 * The Flash of Fate (1918)
 * Smashing Through (1918)
 * So This Is College (1929)
 * Personality (1930)
 * For the Love o' Lil (1930)
 * Swing High (1930)
 * Montague the Magnificent (with Bert Lahr, 1937)
 * Meet the Bride (with Timberg & Rooney, 1938)
 * Money on Your Life (with Charles Kemper and Danny Kaye, 1938)