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Her father was Irish Philadelphian newspaperman, Benny McNulty. He was related to Jim Farley Roosevelt's campaign managers and later Postmaster General.
As a child, she sang songs at a silent movie theater.
After the sixth grade she joined a touring vaudeville act called "The Kiddie Kabaret." Billed as Penny McNulty, she sang and danced with Milton Berle and Gene Raymond.
Her first speaking part was in a Jack Benny Broadway show "Great Temptations". Moving to Hollywood, she took a new name after marrying dentist Lawrence Singleton.
Her first name derived from having saved large amounts of penny coins.
She played a tough nightclub dancer in After the Thin Man (1936) and acted/sang/danced in Swing Your Lady (1938), one of the movies Humphrey Bogart regarded as his worst.
Though naturally a brunette, she bleached her hair blonde ever since she got the role of Blondie in that long-lived series.
IMDb Mini Biography By:
Ed Stephan