She is best remembered for having appeared in the Road to... movies, a series of successful comedies starring Bing Crosby and Bob Hope.

Her appearance as Ulah in The Jungle Princess (1936) brought her fame and marked the beginning of her image as the "Sarong Queen".

In 1961, Crosby and Hope teamed for The Road to Hong Kong, but actress Joan Collins was cast as the female lead.

Her boss, Douglas Singleterry, referred to her as "Dolly Face"; he also recalled that she spent a lot of her time auditioning around Chicago.

She was discovered by orchestra leader Herbie Kay when he spotted her in performance at a Chicago talent show held at the Hotel Morrison.

Lamour supported Irene Dunne and Randolph Scott in High, Wide and Handsome (1937), singing "The Things I Want".

Sam Goldwyn borrowed her for John Ford's The Hurricane (1937), where she was back in a sarong playing an island princess alongside Jon Hall.

Lamour had a cameo in Thrill of a Lifetime (1937) and was third billed in The Big Broadcast of 1938 (1938) after W.C. Fields and Martha Raye; the cast also included Bob Hope in an early appearance.

Tropic Holiday (1938) cast her as a Mexican alongside Bob Burns, Raye and Milland, then she supported George Raft and Henry Fonda in the adventure film Spawn of the North (1938).

Raft was meant to be Lamour's leading man in St. Louis Blues (1939) but he turned down the part and was replaced by Lloyd Nolan.

Lamour was Jack Benny's leading lady in the musical Man About Town (1939) then played a Chinese girl in a melodrama, Disputed Passage (1939).

20th Century Fox borrowed her to play Tyrone Power's leading lady in the gangster film Johnny Apollo (1940).

She did a popular musical with Eddie Bracken, William Holden and Betty Hutton, The Fleet's In (1942), which gave her a hit song, "I Remember You".

During World War II, Lamour was among the more popular pinup girls among American servicemen, along with Betty Grable, Rita Hayworth, Lana Turner, and Veronica Lake.

In 1965, Lamour was awarded a belated citation from the United States Department of the Treasury for her war bond sales.

[1] Lamour made Melody Inn (1943) with Dick Powell, then And the Angels Sing (1944) with Fred MacMurray and Hutton, where she sang "It Could Happen to You".

Lamour played a Mexican in A Medal for Benny (1945), based on a story by John Steinbeck, co-starring Arturo de Córdova.

She was in three big hits in a row: My Favorite Brunette (1947), a comedy with Hope; Wild Harvest (1947), a melodrama with Alan Ladd and Preston; and Road to Rio (1947).

She tried two comedies: The Lucky Stiff (1949), produced by Jack Benny co-starring Brian Donlevy, then Slightly French (1949) with Don Ameche.

Lamour played a successful season at the London Palladium in 1950 then was in two big hits: The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), Cecil B.

However this did not seem to lead to better film offers, and Lamour began concentrating on being a nightclub entertainer and a stage actress.

Lamour moved to Baltimore with her family, where she appeared on TV and worked on the city's cultural commission.

[19] Lamour introduced a number of standards, including "The Moon of Manakoora", "I Remember You", "It Could Happen to You", "Personality", and "But Beautiful".

I do concerts, television and a lot of dinner theatre, where I sing old songs and talk about Bob and Bing and starting out at Paramount at $200 a week and working myself up to $450,000 a picture...I feel wonderful.

'"[1] During the 1990s, she made only a handful of professional appearances but remained a popular interview subject for publications and TV talk and news programs.

Lamour's final stage performance was as "Hattie" in the Long Beach Civic Light Opera's 1990 production of Stephen Sondheim's "Follies".

In 1995, the musical Swinging on a Star, a revue of songs written by Johnny Burke (who wrote many of the most famous Road to ... movie songs as well as the score to Lamour's film And the Angels Sing (1944)) opened on Broadway and ran for three months; Lamour was credited as a "special advisor".

[27] On April 7, 1943, Lamour married Air Force captain and advertising executive William Ross Howard III [1] in Beverly Hills.

[41] Episode: "The Mink Doll" Lamour is the heroine of Matilda Bailey's young adult novel, Dorothy Lamour and the Haunted Lighthouse (1947), whose "heroine has the same name and appearance as the famous actress but has no connection ... it is as though the famous actress has stepped into an alternate reality in which she is an ordinary person."

It is part of a series known as "Whitman Authorized Editions", 16 books published between 1941 and 1947 that each featured a film actress as heroine.