Starr-Crossed

Sally Starr, who appeared in the Three Stooges last movie (The Outlaws Is Coming) and made an album with Bill Haley and the Comets, making her far more unique than some mayor’s wife, has died at the age of 90. The Philadelphia TV pioneer rode in wearing a white cowboy hat and a fringed and starred cowgirl outfit and boots that would have embarrassed Liberace, astride a palomino with a silver saddle and hosted Popeye Theater, one of the city’s longest-running kiddie programs, with more than 1.5 million viewers a day at her peak, besting even Chief Halftown and Captain Kangeroo. She had been on TV in Philadelphia since the 1940s, appearing on Hayloft Hoedown, the first network TV show to originate from Philadelphia, with her husband Jesse Rogers, a country-western singer she first met while trying to get an autograph and married when she was 15. Despite a range of personal setbacks, Our Gal Sal continued making personal appearances and signing autographs for her adopted Delaware Valley family into her 80s, and hosted a South Jersey country music show until April 2011 when she retired for health reasons.