Paula Stone

Paula Stone was an American actress and performer born on January 20, 1912, in New York City, into a distinguished theatrical family that would profoundly shape her career trajectory. As the daughter of Fred Stone, the celebrated stage actor, dancing comedian, and theatrical stock company owner, and Allene Crater Stone, a talented singer who performed alongside her husband, Paula was immersed in show business from birth. The family maintained residences in Forest Hills, Queens, and a ranch near Lyme, Connecticut, providing young Paula with an upbringing that balanced rural tranquility with the electric energy of the theater district. She made her professional stage debut at the remarkably young age of thirteen in May 1925 at the Illinois Theater in Chicago, appearing in Stepping Stones, a production that launched what would become a decades-long career in entertainment. Following in the footsteps of her older sister Dorothy, who debuted at sixteen, and alongside her younger sister Carol, Paula initially harbored ambitions to become a singer like her mother, but soon found her calling in acting. She appeared alongside her famous father and sister in several notable productions, including Ripples, which premiered in New Haven in January 1930 before transferring to Broadway's New Amsterdam Theater in February, and Smiling Faces in 1931, produced by the Shubert Theater owners with music by Mack Gordon and Harry Revel.

Stone's career expanded into motion pictures in 1935 when she signed with RKO Radio, making her film debut opposite William Boyd in Hop-Along Cassidy, followed by roles in Treachery Rides The Range (1936) with Dick Foran and The Girl Said No (1937), the latter earning an Academy Award nomination for its director Andrew L. Stone. Her final screen appearance came in 1939 with the Universal musical Laugh It Off. When her first husband, orchestra leader Duke Daly, was reported missing during World War II—later confirmed killed in action on May 13, 1943, while serving with the Canadian RAF—Stone channeled her grief into patriotic service, performing camp and canteen shows with her father for the troops. Following the war, she married producer Michael Sloan in 1946, with whom she had two children, a son and a daughter, and collaborated on the Broadway musical Top Banana (1951). Stone became a significant force in radio, creating and hosting Leave It to the Girls on the Mutual Radio Network for four years, followed by Hollywood USA in 1950 and The Paula Stone Show beginning in June 1952, where she interviewed celebrities including Joan Crawford and Debbie Reynolds. She later transitioned to television as the MC of Angel Auditions for Broadway Angels, Inc., while continuing to produce theater works including Sweethearts and The Red Mill, remaining active in the industry until 1971 before her death on December 23, 1997, in Sherman Oaks, California, at age eighty-five.