Shirley Dinsdale

Shirley Dinsdale grew up in the San Francisco Bay area. When she was a child, she was severely burned when a kettle tipped over on her and she spent a year in a hospital recovering. During that time a puppet named "Judy Splinters" kept her company. After she returned home, her father bartered for ventriloquist lessons and by the age of 14 was appearing on San Francisco radio shows. Soon she moved to Los Angeles and became a regular on Eddie Cantor's radio program. She also appeared in a number of local benefits for the war effort where she was spotted by a KTLA-TV staffer. In the new medium of television, Shirley, by then 17, started with a five minute daily program. Her renown spread and her program appeared as a daily evening broadcast on NBC during the summer of 1949 and a regular afternoon show for the 1949-1950 season.