Zelma O'Neal (May , â€" November , ) was an actress, singer, and
dancer in the s and s. She appeared on Broadway and in early sound
films, including the Paramount Pictures films Paramount on Parade and
Follow Thru (both ).She was born in Rock Falls, Illinois, on May , ,
and moved to Chicago at the age of two. She attended public schools
until she was fourteen, when she went to work in a factory and later
took office jobs. She worked occasionally in vaudeville, at first
without pay and later professionally as a vaudeville act with her
sister Berenice and a piano player. Her touring brought her to the
East Coast, where she was cast in Good News. Of her appearance in that
musical comedy set on a college campus, Brooks Atkinson wrote in the
New York Times in : "one pert young freshman, Zelma O'Neal, dances
herself into willing exhaustion to the snapping tune of 'The Varsity
Drag'." In a profile, the paper referred to "her personality, which
experts say resembles that of a caged cyclone".She was part of the
cast that took Good News to London in . There she met British actor
Anthony Bushell.She returned to New York for a role in the musical
Follow Thru. She married Bushell in New York on November , . He was
appearing on Broadway in Maugham's The Sacred Flame. Follow Thru
opened in January and proved a hit. It ran almost a full year. In it
she and Jack Haley sang "Button Up Your Overcoat". Atkinson wrote:
dancer in the s and s. She appeared on Broadway and in early sound
films, including the Paramount Pictures films Paramount on Parade and
Follow Thru (both ).She was born in Rock Falls, Illinois, on May , ,
and moved to Chicago at the age of two. She attended public schools
until she was fourteen, when she went to work in a factory and later
took office jobs. She worked occasionally in vaudeville, at first
without pay and later professionally as a vaudeville act with her
sister Berenice and a piano player. Her touring brought her to the
East Coast, where she was cast in Good News. Of her appearance in that
musical comedy set on a college campus, Brooks Atkinson wrote in the
New York Times in : "one pert young freshman, Zelma O'Neal, dances
herself into willing exhaustion to the snapping tune of 'The Varsity
Drag'." In a profile, the paper referred to "her personality, which
experts say resembles that of a caged cyclone".She was part of the
cast that took Good News to London in . There she met British actor
Anthony Bushell.She returned to New York for a role in the musical
Follow Thru. She married Bushell in New York on November , . He was
appearing on Broadway in Maugham's The Sacred Flame. Follow Thru
opened in January and proved a hit. It ran almost a full year. In it
she and Jack Haley sang "Button Up Your Overcoat". Atkinson wrote:
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