Paramount Pictures · Public domain

A singer who, after being turned down by the era's biggest bandleaders including Benny Goodman and the Dorsey brothers, built a solo recording career instead — becoming the first singer of her generation to achieve major success without a band behind her, with eighty charted hits between 1940 and 1957. She then moved into television, hosting a run of variety programs sponsored by Chevrolet through the 1950s and 60s and later two talk shows in the 1970s; TV Guide later ranked her among the top 50 television stars of all time.