Hollywood comes to Ossipee
By Kathy Greer

Virginia De Luce (Wilson) was born in San Francisco, California in 1921. Her amazing career spanned over 60 years from Broadway to Hollywood. She was a beautiful woman that would turn heads everywhere she went. Her life story was found recently packed up in dusty old boxes and suitcases at her late brother’s home in Needham, Massachusetts.

Gary Wallace, an auctioneer and estate liquidator from Ossipee, New Hampshire, known for conducting both estate sales as well as specialty sales was a high school classmate of Miss De Luce’s nephew from his home town of Needham, Massachusetts. The Wilson family called him to assist in selling the personal property of Miss De Luce.

To understand the story further we must start at the end. Virginia was found alone in a chair at her humble naturalistic Berkshire home in Charlmont, Massachusetts. She lay dead for several months with no one by her side. A local man who ran errands for her worried that he had not received a call from her for months, and found her body in March of 1997.

When Gary Wallace came to the Needham home of Virginia De Luce’s late brother in August 2001, he noticed a wonderful photograph of Virginia leaning against the wall in the front hall. He recognized the photographer as done by Bruno, the famous Hollywood photographer of movie stars. Then questions began to fly in rapid order. The Wilson family quickly began explaining their connection to Virginia along with stories about her Hollywood career and life accomplishments.

After her death, the family removed most of her personal belongings from her Berkshire home and stored them in the garage and basement of her brother’s in Needham. Upon her brother’s death, Virginia De Luce’s lifelong memories were rediscovered. The Wilson family and Gary Wallace agreed to sell off all of her memorabilia at public auction on September 8th at the auctioneer’s Rt. 16, Ossipee, New Hampshire gallery.

A look at Virginia De Luce’s biography in Who’s Who in Entertainment will explain what type of woman she was. A model, dancer, singer, entertainer, artist, numerous civic and political connections are just a few of her accomplishments. She was a striking beauty with a statuesque body and a royal personality. We could write several pages about her accomplishments and still not have a complete picture of her remarkable life.

Virginia was married three times.  The first two marriages were very short, lasting less than a year each. The third was to Rick Riccardo. He suddenly disappeared and never was seen again. Virginia received one of her biggest career boosts in the musical, New Faces of 1952, a Broadway hit produced by Leonard Sillman where she starred with Eartha Kitt, Paul Lind and Alice Ghostly. It had 365 performances and the same cast was then used in the Hollywood movie of the same name.  She was a lead singer in the Roly Rogers band, appeared in numerous shows, movies, hotel cabarets and countless television series. She was a semi regular on the original Tonite Show with Jack Parr and appeared on the Sergeant Bilco and Car 54, Where Are You TV comedies. She sang on the Arthur Godfrey Show and did countless radio shows back in the 1940s and 1950s. She was a dancer in the Laurel and Hardy movie called Jitterbugs back in 1943. She played many hotel cabarets including the famous Copacabana Palace in Rio de Janeiro.

Later in life Virginia tried to revitalize her career by producing several records which created very little success. She aligned herself with the American Indian movement and lived and worked with them to help their various causes. She did many benefit performances, wrote music and poetry, all under her adopted name, Blue Dove.

As years passed her by she still retained her remarkable photogenic beauty and searching for more success suddenly packed up her belongings and moved to her aging mother’s home in Weston, Massachusetts. Here she became very politically active in the Republican Party and town politics. She held positions in town government and many others in political and civic organizations.  It was not uncommon to see a letter to the editor regarding the issues of the time signed by Virginia De Luce.  Also, another name change to Contessa Reni Spring shows up on many of her correspondences and promotional materials.

After her mother’s death, De Luce moved to the quiet town of Charlmont, Massachusetts located in the Berkshire Mountains where she became somewhat of a recluse. Here she may have found her inner peace in her small country home surrounded by wildlife and away from the pressures of show business and the constant need to be working.

The life of Virginia De Luce reflects a more real side to the life of a star.  We see the constant pressures of just being beautiful and all the concessions you must make personally to become successful.

We salute Virginia De Luce for being such remarkable person and quote one of the many fan mail letters she received from servicemen during World War II:
 
Dear Miss De Luce,

Thanks for all what you are doing for us, Miss De Luce. You are a wonderful perfect pin-up girl. Especially for us the soldiers of the United States.  K.K. 1944
 

BIO: Entertainer, born in San Francisco, March 25, 1921. Attended Bishop Lee school of Theatre, Beacon Hill, Boston, Mass. Model John Roberts Powers, Harry Conover, dir. New Wrinkle Theatre actress 20th Century Fox Films Corp. Columbia Pictures, Paramount Pictures, also commercials: Actress in many musicals and plays- including-Kiss Me Kate, Brigadoon, Can Can, Pal Joey, Emperor Jones, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter, Twelfth Night and many more, Appeared in many hotel shows and cabarets worldwide. Appeared as a semi regular on the Jack Parr- Tonite Show and Sgt Bilco Television series. Also starred in many Hollywood movies. Active in the Republican party and many other civic organizations. Fashion designer and songwriter. Active in American Indian affairs known as (Blue Dove). Listed in Who’s Who In Entertainment. A long and diverse career spanning over 5 decades.