playback singer

So to avoid that ridicule, Hollywood Studios kept the Kathys of the world secret from the public.

So much so that they became known in the industry as ghost singers.

By the 1940s and 50s, ghost singers were everywhere, which is also to say that actors lip-syncing to voices other than their own had become commonplace.

These Technicolor films start coming in.

Everything becomes bigger, bolder.

This is why even Debbie Reynolds, who played the ghost singer Kathy in Singing in the Rain, ironically ended up dubbed herself for the movie's ballads by a ghost singer.

They met as you and I.

The fictional Kathy would be outraged to hear that none of these real-life ghost singers, like the two you've just heard, Anita Ellis and Betty Noyes, ever received screen credit.