Kirby Grant

These "Gateway" contracts were already prepared with fictitious screen names (thus Josephine Cottle became "Gale Storm" and Ralph Bowman became "John Archer"; Grant won with Dorothy Howe, who became "Virginia Vale").

"Robert Stanton" and "Virginia Vale" were introduced in the RKO Radio Pictures feature Three Sons, with Edward Ellis and William Gargan.

In 1943, Grant signed with Universal Pictures, where he played romantic leads in B musicals, and in Abbott and Costello and Olsen and Johnson comedies.

He played Arizona rancher-pilot Schuyler "Sky" King, who fought bad guys and rescued people with his airplane.

Sky and his niece Penny, played by Gloria Winters, lived on the "Flying Crown Ranch".

Grant did little acting after Sky King ended, although he and Gloria Winters were in demand for personal appearances at fairs and aviation events.

The couple founded the nonprofit Sky King Youth Ranches of America, which provided homes for abandoned or orphaned children.

He had plans to resurrect the Sky King series with the Flying Crown Ranch becoming a home for such kids, and publicizing their stories, but it never materialized.