Lois January TV Schedule

Enjoying a much longer career than almost all of her contemporaries, Lois January not only became a favorite guest speaker at B-Western reunions of the 1980s and 1990s, but continued to appear in films and on television well into her seventies. A dancer from the age of two, January was discovered performing in a high school play by a talent scout from Universal. That was apparently in the very early '30s, but she did little more than cheesecake layouts until 1933, when she began turning up with some frequency in Columbia comedy shorts.

She became a star in B-Westerns, however, of which she did a total of 12 within a span of only two years (1935-1937). At posh MGM, January reportedly sang with Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz (1939), though if true, her footage must have been left on the cutting-room floor. A stunning redhead, January is easily identifiable, however, as a woman carrying a cat in the Emerald City scenes.

By 1940, she had switched her not inconsiderable energy to Broadway, appearing with Sophie Tucker in High Kickers, but is perhaps best remembered for headlining her own radio show, Revelle Sweetheart, broadcast by CBS from 1941 to 1946. From radio it was only a short step to early television, and in addition to becoming a semi-regular on My Three Sons, January also appeared on such shows as Marcus Welby, Police Story, Barnaby Jones, and The Rockford Files. She even popped up in a Ringo Starr variety special and appeared, as late as 1987, in the made-for-television movie Double Agent.

In addition to her show business career, January was a noted Los Angeles businesswoman in the field of public relations.