Trivia

A champion of civil rights, in the 1940s, she refused to appear in theaters that did not allow Billie Holiday to perform. In 1940, she was the first white singer to record with Lionel Hampton and his all-black orchestra.

Big band singer who performed and recorded with the orchestras of Artie Shaw (mid-1938 to late-1939), Benny Goodman (late-1939 to mid-1941), and Harry James (fall 1941 to December 1943).

Inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 2001.

One of the few early televised appearances of her that is still in existence is the episode of The Ed Wynn Show (1949) (Helen Forrest, The Three Stooges (1950)) that also featured The Three Stooges. This is mainly because of its appearance on many low budget videotapes and DVDs of all the rest of The Three Stooges public domain shorts and features.

She was a lifelong liberal Democrat.