Gale Storm R.I.P.

Dot Records' founder Randy Wood, who produced and recorded TV star Gale (My Little Margie) Storm is alive and well at age 91 living in Southern California as are his three kids and wife. His son John Wood is a first rate jazz pianist and a friend of mine and keeps me up date on his dad AND mom's activities. A wonderful extended family of grandparents, children and grandchildren.

I called John a couple of nights ago and told him the sad news about Storm whom he knew from the time he worked for his dad as the world's littlest recording studio timekeeper. John can even recall, when he was around five, Gale coming to Gallatin, TN where Dot was originally located and workiing out the details of her recording contract. The idea of recording Storm, according to John, was not his dad's but John's little sister who implored her father to "Make a record with [My Little] Margie." ("And a little child shall. . .") And so he did!

John says you can't imagine what it was like to be five years old and suddenly have a TV character sitting at the dinner table in what was, for all practical purposes, rural Tennessee. He can still recall his sister and himself asking Gale, i.e. "Margie," questions about "Freddie," "Mr. Honeywell," "Roberta" (Charlie Farrell's girlfriend in the series played by Hillary Brooke), "Mrs. Odetts." et al. I wonder if they asked her to do the "Margie gurgle" after dinner?

And I remember: ". . .I want a nice old comfortable father. I try to look after him, but he just won't settle down. I've got a problem. Believe me, I've got a problem!"