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Rating |
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Title |
[Cast of "Tars and Spars" movie, 1945] |
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Date |
1945 |
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Item description |
The cast of the Columbia Pictures film version of "Tars and Spars" poses for a publicity photo in 1945. Actor Sid Ceaser is center; Coralee Burson Davis, one of a few SPARS from the traveling show cast in the movie, is in the last row, second from the right. |
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Subject headings |
World War, 1939-1945
United States. Coast Guard |
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Era |
World War II era (1940-1946) |
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Service branch |
Coast Guard--SPARS |
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Veteran's name |
Davis, Coralee Burson |
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Veteran's biography |
Coralee "Coco" Burson Davis (1921-2016) of Pasadena, California, served in the Coast Guard SPARs from 1942 to 1946 and was a member of the "Tars and Spars" musical revue and movie cast.
Coralee "Coco" Burson Davis was born in 1921 in Eagle Rock, California, and was raised in Pasadena, California. She graduated high school in 1939 and went to work at Lockheed Aircraft while also performing in shows at the Pasadena Playhouse .
Davis joined the Coast Guard Women's Reserve, or SPARs [from “Sempar Paratus—Always Ready”] in fall 1942 and was sent to Hunter College, New York, in February 1943 for boot camp. She was then sent to U.S. Coast Guard Headquarters in Washington, where she did clerical work for its transportation department. She also began giving recruitment speeches to local women’s groups and doing interviews on a radio show. Davis was then cast in the Coast Guard revue "Tars and Spars and was sent to Palm Beach, Florida, for rehearsal. She toured the country with the show until 1945. She was then cast in the movie of the same name, and spent the summer of 1945 filming in Hollywood. In the November 1945 she participated in another version of the revue, organized to sell victory bonds in Pennsylvania. Davis was discharged from the SPARs in March 1946, following the completion of her publicity activities for the movie's release in New York.
Following her discharge, Davis traveled between New York City and Pasadena, primarily acting and modeling. She married Walter Rathbun in spring of 1948, and the two worked in a summer theatre group in California. When her husband died of Hodgkin’s disease in 1952, Davis moved back to New York. In 1954, she moved to San Juan, Puerto Rico, where she met and married Horace Davis in 1956. He was later reassigned to Washington, DC, where they lived for four years until settling in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1963, and opening a travel agency. |
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Source collection |
WV0222 Coralee Burson Davis Papers |
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Collection summary |
2001 oral history interview, photographs, scrapbook, VHS and audiotapes, ID bracelet, "Tars & Spars" Program |
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Finding aid link |
http://libapps.uncg.edu/archon/index.php?p=collections/controlcard&id=769&q=coralee |
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Type |
image |
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Original format |
photographs |
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Original publisher |
[Place of publication not identified] : [publisher not identified] |
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Contributing institution |
Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives, UNCG University Libraries |
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Preferred citation |
[Identification of item], [Identification of collection], Betty H. Carter Women Veterans Historical Project, Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, NC, USA. |
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Rights statement |
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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Additional rights information |
IN COPYRIGHT. This item is subject to copyright. Contact the rights holder noted above for permission to reuse. |
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Object ID |
WV0222.6.002 |
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Digital publisher |
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, University Libraries, PO Box 26170, Greensboro NC 27402-6170, 336.334.5304 -- http://library.uncg.edu/ |
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OCLC number |
900812061 |
