Virginia Dale

Actress and dancer Virginia Dale was born Virginia Paxton in Charlotte, North Carolina, on July 1, 1917. Her parents were mechanic Joel Paxton and Lula Helms Paxton. Dale was one of six children: Jay, Frances, Frieda, Joey, and an unnamed infant. Tragically, the infant and Frieda did not survive to adulthood.

As a child, Dale attended schools in the Charlotte area. She later worked with her sister, Frances, to develop a dance act called The Paxton Sisters, leading her to appear in Broadway shows such as Him and The Final Balance. The duo was discovered by Darryl F. Zanuck at a New York nightclub and signed a contract with 20^th Century Fox, where Dale took on the stage name of Virginia Dale.

Dale worked in several different musical films throughout the 1930s and 1940s, including Idiot’s Delight (1939), Buck Benny Rides Again (1940), Love Thy Neighbor (1940), and Kiss the Boys Goodbye (1941). She is best known for her performance as Lila Dixon in the Holiday Inn (1942) alongside Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire.

In the 1950s, she transitioned to television, appearing in shows such as The Adventure Patrol and The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp. Dale appeared in Love That Brute (1950) and Danger Zone (1951) in the 1950s before culminating her on-screen work with the television miniseries Nutcracker: Money, Madness & Murder.

Dale passed away from emphysema on October 3, 1994, at 77 years old. She was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park—Hollywood Hills in Los Angeles, California.

Today, there are very few locations in connection to Dale’s life that exist, though some have been razed over time. Her 1920 home at 24 S. Cecil St., Charlotte, North Carolina, no longer stands, as is the case for her family’s 1930 home at 1103 E. 9^th St., Charlotte, North Carolina.

By 1935, she was living with her sister, Frances at the Hotel Edison, which stands today at 228 W. 47^th St., New York, New York.