Dona Drake

Dona Drake was an American performer who sang, danced and acted in films during the 1930s and 1940s. Born in Miami, Florida, she began performing in 1932 as a chorus girl and nightclub dancer under the name Una Villon, and appeared in Earl Carroll's Vanities in 1933. By 1935 she performed as Rita Rio at a Broadway cabaret, playing several instruments and sometimes leading an orchestra. She went to Hollywood around 1940 and settled on the stage name Dona Drake. Often cast in ethnic roles such as Latin American and Middle Eastern characters, she played Mihirmah, an Arab girl, opposite Bing Crosby and Bob Hope in Road to Morocco (1942), and was perhaps best known as Bette Davis's American Indian maid in Beyond the Forest (1949). Her other films included Hot Rhythm (1944) and The Girl from Jones Beach (1949). She died in 1989.