Winn, Mary Louise (ca. 1914–1991)

Mary Louise Winn, silent screen actor and professional dancer who used the professional names of Sally Jennings and Sally Joy, was born in Paris, Tennessee, around 1914 and raised in California. As a teenager she became a regular in silent Western movies. Soon after this she became a professional dancer and married her dance partner, Don Jennings. They performed together as the Don and Sally Jennings dance team throughout the 1930s on a circuit that included clubs from Chicago to Hawaii, as well as extensive touring in China. Winn visited Dallas in the 1940s, where she danced professionally at the Baker and Adolphus hotels. In 1943, after her first marriage had ended, she married James Monte Maloney (stage name Jimmy Joy), a big-band leader in Texas; she subsequently used the name Sally Joy. After several more years in the entertainment business, she retired. Joy made his headquarters in Dallas, and it was there that Sally Joy lived after 1947, raising her two daughters with him. She remained in Dallas for the next forty years. Late in her life, as a widow, she moved to Hawaii and made plans to marry another big-band leader, Del Courtney. She returned to Dallas, where she died of cancer at her daughter's home on January 9, 1991. She was survived by two daughters, one sister, and six grandchildren. After a Mass at All Saints Catholic Church, she was buried in Restland Memorial Park in Dallas.