A better-than-average singer and a comedienne with a gift for playing knockabout face, Martha Raye supported Crosby in "Rhythm on the Range," making her film debut as a rough-and-ready society girl who sets her cap for rodeo star Bob Burns
She sang "Mr. Paganini," which became one of her trademark tunes of the years, and bellowed her way through the movie with enthusiasm
She had less to do in "Waikiki Wedding," in which Crosby sang "Sweet Leilani," the Oscar-winning tune of that year
But in "Double or Nothing," she got along better as one of a quartet of people Crosby, Andy Devine, and William Frawley were the otherswho are caught up in a plot involving a millionaire's will The story paused often enough to permit Crosby to sing, but Martha Raye stopped the show with a noisy and disorderly spoof of a burlesque stripper called "It's On, It's Off." She was not round up to help him in the last few years of the thirties, when his films lacked the lively spirit and sense of his earlier musicals
But in "Double or Nothing," she got along better as one of a quartet of people Crosby, Andy Devine, and William Frawley were the otherswho are caught up in a plot involving a millionaire's will The story paused often enough to permit Crosby to sing, but Martha Raye stopped the show with a noisy and disorderly spoof of a burlesque stripper called "It's On, It's Off." She was not round up to help him in the last few years of the thirties, when his films lacked the lively spirit and sense of his earlier musicals