Ellen Jane Froman (November 10, 1907 – April 22, 1980) was an American actress and singer. During her thirty-year career, she performed on stage, radio and television despite chronic health problems due to injuries sustained in a 1943 plane crash. Her life story was told in the 1952 film With a Song in My Heart. She was portrayed by Susan Hayward, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance. Early life and education Ellen Jane Froman was born in University City, Missouri, the daughter of Anna Tillman ( Barcafer) and Elmer Ellsworth Froman. Her childhood and adolescence were spent in the small Missouri town of Clinton. When Froman was about five years old, her father mysteriously disappeared and was never heard from again, although it is known he died in Los Angeles in 1936. Her mother later remarried, to William Hetzler. Froman developed a stutter around this time, which stayed with her all of her life, except when she sang. In 1919, Froman and her mother moved to Columbia, Missouri, which she considered her hometown. In 1921, at age 13, Froman and another young lady gave a piano-and-song recital at Christian College, now Columbia College (Missouri) (where her mother was director of vocal studies and from which Froman later graduated). In 1926, Froman graduated from Christian College and later attended the University of Missouri School of Journalism. Two years later in 1928, Froman moved to Cincinnati, where she studied voice at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music through 1930. Radio Although Froman had classical voice training, early in her career she was drawn to the music of the era's songwriters, George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Irving Berlin, who were inspiring a resurgence in popular music. She met vaudeville performer Don Ross when they auditioned for the same job at WLW radio station in Cincinnati. She first appeared on WLW October 9, 1929 "on the King Taste night club." Froman made her national network debut on NBC July 31, 1931. She was heard on the Florsheim Frolic program, broadcast on Sunday afternoons. Froman and Ross had their own program beginning July 4, 1937. The 13-episode series on the NBC Red Network was a summer replacement for The Jack Benny Program. There, Froman joined Henry Thies' orchestra and was a featured vocalist on a number of Thies' RCA Victor recordings. Convinced that she was star material,