All About Dinah: A look at the life of Dinah Shore
Most of you have driven down Dinah Shore Drive, and probably heard of the girl parties named after her, but do you know exactly who Dinah Shore was?
“I do not,” Addie Vroom said.
“I, um, believe she would be a TV personality?” another person said.
“Honestly, the only thing I know is from driving on the street. Seems like a pretty famous person, but I don’t know much,” Vroom said.
Pretty famous – that’s an understatement. We sat down with entertainment reporter,Gloria Greer, who knows a lot about Dinah Shore.
“She was a little southern gal with a great voice who became a well-known recording artist and then her ‘Dinah Shore’ television show was one of the biggest shows on television,” Greer said.
She got her first TV show, The Dinah Shore Show, in 1951. She went on to host two daytime programs. Also, she and Burt Reynolds made headlines with their romance in the 1970’s.
“It was a big love affair. It got a lot of publicity. It was all over the magazines. There was no way, if you were around that time, that you didn’t know about Dinah Shore,” Greer said.
But, thousands of young people not around at that time come to the desert for the Kraft Nabisco, and for the Dinah Shore Girl Parties, but don’t know the woman behind it all.
“It is the Dinah Shore, which is what the tournament used to be called, before it went back to the name Kraft Nabisco, it was the Dinah Shore, everyone referred to the name as the Dinah Shore,” Greer said.
It might not be their fault for not knowing, though.
“In a way you can’t blame them because there is no mention of Dinah Shore when the publicity comes out about the tournament. They dropped the name, the whole thing. They did not do what Humana did which is at least keep a reference of Bob Hope,” Greer said.
People who loved her and followed her career keep her legacy alive.
“It’s a sad part of life. Unfortunately, people who are really famous, long after they’re gone, the younger generations don’t know who they are, but she was a very big star,” Greer said.
Younger generations will always see her name around town.
