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Betty Brodel, a singer, actress and older sister of High Sierra and Sergeant York star Joan Leslie, died Sunday in Florida, family member Cathy Palmer told The Hollywood Reporter. She was 104.

Brodel appeared with Leslie in the wartime charity films Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943) and Hollywood Canteen (1944), plus Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Too Young to Know (1945) and Cinderella Jones (1946).

Elizabeth Ann Brodel was born in Detroit on Feb. 5, 1920. Her father, John Brodel, was a bank teller and her mother, Agnes, a pianist and homemaker.

She and her siblings Mary (born in 1916) and Joan (born in 1925) sang and danced in a vaudeville act called The Brodel Sisters, performing in their hometown and New York City and touring from Canada to Florida.

When a talent scout signed Mary to a contract at MGM, the family headed to Burbank, and the sisters appeared in the 1936 short film Signing Off.

Betty also showed up in...

Gary Cooper movies on TCM: Cooper at his best and at his weakest Gary Cooper is Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” star today, Aug. 30, '15. Unfortunately, TCM isn't showing any Cooper movie premiere – despite the fact that most of his Paramount movies of the '20s and '30s remain unavailable. This evening's features are Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), Sergeant York (1941), and Love in the Afternoon (1957). Mr. Deeds Goes to Town solidified Gary Cooper's stardom and helped to make Jean Arthur Columbia's top female star. The film is a tad overlong and, like every Frank Capra movie, it's also highly sentimental. What saves it from the Hell of Good Intentions is the acting of the two leads – Cooper and Arthur are both excellent – and of several supporting players. Directed by Howard Hawks, the jingoistic, pro-war Sergeant York was a huge box office hit, eventually earning Academy Award nominations in several categories,...