MICHAEL O'SHEA

Michael O'Shea was an actor from the 1940s to the 1950s. He had a fascinating life! He was born in 1906 as one of six sons of an Irish cop, and all five of his brothers became policemen, but he dropped out of school at the age of 12 and went into vaudeville, touring with heavyweight boxing champ Jack Johnson's traveling show. He did anything to make money, including being an emcee and playing with his band "Michael O'Shea and His Stationary Gypsies". He finally got some legitimate stage roles in the 1930s, and he finally got a movie role in 1943 in "Lady of Burlesque", opposite Barbara Stanwyck. With a shortage of leading men during World War II, he got some good leading roles during the war years, and he sang in some of them. In 1943, he played the lead role in "Jack London", where he worked with Virginia Mayo, and they married four years later. He performed on stage with her and his film career fizzled at the end of the 1940s, but he got a lead in a TV show in 1954, "It's a Great Life". In the 1960s, he retired from show business and got a job working "plainclothes" for the CIA, and he passed away from a heart attack in 1973, still married to Virginia Mayo!