In the early to mid-1960s Jackie Ward (Jacqueline McDonnell, 1941-) was one of the singers on The Red Skelton Show, The Danny Kaye Show, The Carol Burnett Show, and later singing on The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, and The Partridge Family. Ward lent her voice to numerous television commercials or on someone else's hit records. All heard but not seen. A studio musician's life. But she had her own hit record, "Wonderful Summer," as Robin Ward (taking her daughter's name) in 1963. Her voice was sped up slightly giving it a higher, teenager's sound. Perhaps best known as one of two smooth altos (the other being B.J. Baker) with the Anita Kerr Singers quartet during their 5-year Los Angeles recording period (Anita Kerr, Gene Merlino, Ward, and Bob Tebow, above). During the 1960s she provided the singing voice for a number of famous film actresses. Most notably, Natalie Wood and Janet Leigh for her lip-sync to the 1966 Oscar-nominated best song, "A Time for Love," written by Johnny Mandel and Paul Francis Webster.
Despite the noted songwriting nomination above, An American Dream was the pseudo-thriller that tanked at the box office. Produced by William Conrad and Jimmy Lydon for Warner Bros. and directed by actor Robert Gist, a frequent co-star on television's Have Gun Will Travel, everyone apparently lost focus on the film's potential. It starred Stuart Whitman, Janet Leigh with an over-the-top performance by Eleanor Parker. Accompanying them is a host of B-movie or television regulars including Warren Stevens, Joe De Santis, Stacy Harris, Barry Sullivan, Lloyd Nolan, Paul Mantee, Harold Gould and J.D. Cannon.
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