Greatest Voices in Jazz
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Billie Holiday was a true artist of her day and rose as a social phenomenon in the 1950s. Her soulful, unique singing voice and her ability to boldly turn any material that she confronted into her own music made her a superstar of her time. Today, Holiday is remembered for her masterpieces, creativity and vivacity, as many of Holiday's songs are as well known today as they were decades ago. Holiday's poignant voice is still considered to be one of the greatest jazz voices of all time.
At the age of 18 and after gaining more experience than most adult musicians can claim, Holiday was spotted by John Hammond and cut her first record as part of a studio group led by Benny Goodman, who was then just on the verge of public prominence. In 1935 Holiday's career got a big push when she recorded four sides that went on to become hits, including "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Miss Brown to You." This landed her a recording contract of her own, and then, until 1942, she recorded a number of master tracks that would ultimately become an important building block of early American jazz music.
Holiday recorded about 100 new recordings on another label, Verve, from 1952 to 1959. Her voice became more rugged and vulnerable on these tracks than earlier in her career. During this period, she toured Europe, and made her final studio recordings for the MGM label in March of 1959. Billie Holiday, a musical legend still popular today, died an untimely death at the age of 44. Her emotive voice, innovative techniques and touching songs will forever be remembered and enjoyed- Actress
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Carmen McRae was born on 8 April 1920 in Harlem, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for Real Genius (1985), Hotel (1967) and Excess Baggage (1997). She was married to Ike Isaacs and Kenny Clarke. She died on 10 November 1994 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actress
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Cecile McLorin Salvant is known for Ella Fitzgerald: Taking A Chance on Love (Live) (2020), When the Bough Breaks (2016) and Sylvie's Love (2020).- Music Artist
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Diana Jean Krall was born in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada, to Adella A. (Wende), an elementary school teacher, and Stephen James Krall, an accountant. She has Czech, German, English, and Scottish ancestry. Krall was raised in Nanaimo, a small community on Vancouver Island, where she began performing professionally at age 15 as a jazz pianist. In 1981, Diana won a Vancouver Jazz Festival scholarship to study at Berklee College of Music in Boston and, after a year and a half of serious study, she returned to British Columbia. Renowned bassist Ray Brown heard her playing one night in Nanaimo and convinced Diana to move to Los Angeles where she obtained a Canadian Arts Council grant to study with Jimmy Rowles. Jimmy encouraged Diana to explore her vocals to supplement her already blossoming piano skills. With several successful CDs to her credit, Diana has won numerous awards including Canada's Juno Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album (2000) and a Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Performance (2000). She received the Order of British Columbia in 2000 for being a good-will ambassador for British Columbia and epitomizing Canadian culture. The greatest talent in the jazz field to come along in a generation, she frequently acknowledges her roots in Nanaimo where she began. She epitomizes Canadian culture and is an outstanding citizen and good-will ambassador for British Columbia.- Soundtrack
Born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, the former Ruth Lee Jones moved with her family to Chicago as a young girl. She considered the Windy City her true home. And it was there in early 1940s that a local nightclub owner provided her first gig - and a new name that she would make famous. By 1959 she had earned a Grammy for her version of the song "What a Diff'rence a Day Makes." In his 2001 biography Q, music legend Quincy Jones vividly describes Washington's style, saying she "could take the melody in her hand, hold it like an egg, crack it open, fry it, let it sizzle, reconstruct it, put the egg back in the box and back in the refrigerator and you would've still understood every single syllable."
But the singer's musical gifts were offset by a wild and extravagant personal life. Married seven times, Washington battled weight problems and raced through her profits buying shoes, furs and cars in an effort to lift her spirits. Washington also tried numerous prescription medications, primarily for dieting and insomnia. A mix of the pills she was taking in 1963 caused her death, which was ruled an accident. Her gift lives on through her rich musical legacy.- Music Artist
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On Saturday, June 15th, 1996, an era in jazz singing came to an end, with the death of Ella Fitzgerald at her home in California. She was the last of four great female jazz singers (including Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, and Carmen McRae) who defined one of the most prolific eras in jazz vocal style. Ella had extraordinary vocal skills from the time she was a teenager, and joined the Chick Webb Orchestra in 1935 when she was 16 years old. With an output of more than 200 albums, she was at her sophisticated best with the songs of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, of George Gershwin, and of Cole Porter. Her 13 Grammy awards are more than any other jazz performer, and she won the Best Female Vocalist award three years in a row. Completely at home with up-tempo songs, her scat singing placed her jazz vocals with the finest jazz instrumentalists, and it was this magnificent voice that she brought to her film appearances. Her last few years, during which she had a bout with congestive heart failure and suffered bilateral amputation of her legs from complications of diabetes, were spent in seclusion.- Music Artist
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Frank Sinatra was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, to Italian immigrants Natalina Della (Garaventa), from Northern Italy, and Saverio Antonino Martino Sinatra, a Sicilian boxer, fireman, and bar owner. Growing up on the gritty streets of Hoboken made Sinatra determined to work hard to get ahead. Starting out as a saloon singer in musty little dives (he carried his own P.A. system), he eventually got work as a band singer, first with The Hoboken Four, then with Harry James and then Tommy Dorsey. With the help of George Evans (Sinatra's genius press agent), his image was shaped into that of a street thug and punk who was saved by his first wife, Nancy Barbato Sinatra. In 1942 he started his solo career, instantly finding fame as the king of the bobbysoxers--the young women and girls who were his fans--and becoming the most popular singer of the era among teenage music fans. About that time his film career was also starting in earnest, and after appearances in a few small films, he struck box-office gold with a lead role in Anchors Aweigh (1945) with Gene Kelly, a Best Picture nominee at the 1946 Academy Awards. Sinatra was awarded a special Oscar for his part in a short film that spoke out against intolerance, The House I Live In (1945). His career on a high, Sinatra went from strength to strength on record, stage and screen, peaking in 1949, once again with Gene Kelly, in the MGM musical On the Town (1949) and Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949). A controversial public affair with screen siren Ava Gardner broke up his marriage to Nancy Barbato Sinatra and did his career little good, and his record sales dwindled. He continued to act, although in lesser films such as Meet Danny Wilson (1952), and a vocal cord hemorrhage all but ended his career. He fought back, though, finally securing a role he desperately wanted--Maggio in From Here to Eternity (1953). He won an Oscar for best supporting actor and followed this with a scintillating performance as a cold-blooded assassin hired to kill the US President in Suddenly (1954). Arguably a career-best performance--garnering him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor--was his role as a pathetic heroin addict in the powerful drama The Man with the Golden Arm (1955).
Known as "One-Take Charlie" for his approach to acting that strove for spontaneity and energy, rather than perfection, Sinatra was an instinctive actor who was best at playing parts that mirrored his own personality. He continued to give strong and memorable performances in such films as Guys and Dolls (1955), The Joker Is Wild (1957) and Some Came Running (1958). In the late 1950s and 1960s Sinatra became somewhat prolific as a producer, turning out such films as A Hole in the Head (1959), Sergeants 3 (1962) and the very successful Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964). Lighter roles alongside "Rat Pack" buddies Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. were lucrative, especially the famed Ocean's Eleven (1960). On the other hand, he alternated such projects with much more serious offerings, such as The Manchurian Candidate (1962), regarded by many critics as Sinatra's finest picture. He made his directorial debut with the World War II picture None But the Brave (1965), which was the first Japanese/American co-production. That same year Von Ryan's Express (1965) was a box office sensation. In 1967 Sinatra returned to familiar territory in Sidney J. Furie's The Naked Runner (1967), once again playing as assassin in his only film to be shot in the U.K. and Germany. That same year he starred as a private investigator in Tony Rome (1967), a role he reprised in the sequel, Lady in Cement (1968). He also starred with Lee Remick in The Detective (1968), a film daring for its time with its theme of murders involving rich and powerful homosexual men, and it was a major box-office success.
After appearing in the poorly received comic western Dirty Dingus Magee (1970), Sinatra didn't act again for seven years, returning with a made-for-TV cops-and-mob-guys thriller Contract on Cherry Street (1977), which he also produced. Based on the novel by William Rosenberg, this fable of fed-up cops turning vigilante against the mob boasted a stellar cast and was a ratings success. Sinatra returned to the big screen in The First Deadly Sin (1980), once again playing a New York detective, in a moving and understated performance that was a fitting coda to his career as a leading man. He made one more appearance on the big screen with a cameo in Cannonball Run II (1984) and a final acting performance in Magnum, P.I. (1980), in 1987, as a retired police detective seeking vengeance on the killers of his granddaughter, in an episode entitled Laura (1987).- Actor
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Joseph Harry Fowler Connick, Jr. was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is the son of Anita Frances (Levy), a lawyer and judge, and Harry Connick, Sr. (Joseph Harry Fowler Connick), who served as District Attorney of New Orleans from 1973 to 2003. His father is of Irish, English, and German ancestry, and his maternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Vienna, Austria and Minsk, Belarus. Harry, Jr.'s mother died of ovarian cancer when he was 13.
His parents owned a record store and encouraged their son's interest in music - piano at age three, with a New Orleans jazz band aged ten. He won piano competitions while playing French Quarter clubs and attending the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts. At eighteen, he studied at New York's Hunter College and later on at the Manhatan School of Music. At nineteen, he released his first album for Columbia Records and began an extended run performing at the Algonquin's Oak Room, followed a year later by his second album. He wrote the score and sang several songs for Rob Reiner's When Harry Met Sally... (1989), the soundtrack for which went multi-platinum. So far, while bringing back swing and big band music, he has earned one gold, four platinum and three multi-platinum albums, plus two Grammies. His film acting debut was as B-17 tail-gunner Clay Busby in Memphis Belle (1990). He played mass-murderer Daryll Lee Cullum in the Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter film Copycat (1995) and Captain Jimmy Wilder ("Let's kick the tires and light the fires, big daddy!") in Independence Day (1996).
Harry lives in Connecticut, is married to the former model Jill Goodacre, and has three daughters, Georgia Tatom, Sara Kate and Charlotte.- Actress
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Brunette Helen Forrest was born Helen Fogel in Atlantic City, New Jersey. She loved singing from early childhood and keenly listened to recordings by all the major female jazz and blues vocalists of the day. At the age of ten, Helen competed in a dance marathon and sang with her brother's band in Washington, D.C. By the time she reached her mid-teens, was a salaried employee of CBS radio and WNEW (New York), singing under the pseudonyms Bonnie Blue, Blue Lady and Marlene. In 1937, she was invited for a guest spot with the orchestra of Bunny Berigan. Clarinettist and bandleader Artie Shaw witnessed her performance and was so impressed that he promptly hired her as main female vocalist to perform alongside the great Billie Holiday.
Though their styles and repertoire differed considerably, Billie was very supportive and became a powerful (though sadly short-lived) influence on young Helen. When Billie was forced to leave the band in October 1938 due to race-related issues (much to Shaw's disgust), Helen was thrust into the limelight as the band's sole vocal star. Performing out of the Blue Room of New York's Hotel Lincoln, she recorded the first of some 40 sides with Shaw, including two tracks that made it to Number 1 in the U.S. charts: "They Say" and "Thanks for Everything". Though Helen was not, perhaps, a jazz singer in the truest sense, she brought to her songs a wistful 'girl-next-door' quality that no other singer of the time possessed in equal measure. The femininity and warmth of her voice and the clear, emotional phrasing of her lyrics were never more effectively expressed than in the Tin Pan Alley ballads showcased by the Shaw orchestra, notably Rodgers & Hart's "I Didn't Know What Time It Was", "What's New", Jimmy Van Heusen's "Deep In A Dream" (which reached Number 3 in the charts) and "Melancholy Mood" (from the Broadway musical 'Very Warm For May').
Helen's vocals contributed in no small measure to the success and popularity of the Artie Shaw orchestra and she herself became a national favorite. However, when Shaw impulsively disbanded the organisation in November 1939, Helen found herself momentarily unemployed. Benny Goodman, who was notorious for his off-hand attitude towards his singers, seized the opportunity for a bargain and hired her at half her previous salary. Thus began the second phase of Helen's career which lasted until 1941. She made 54 recordings with the Goodman band, many of them arranged by the brilliant Eddie Sauter who tailored many songs specifically for her voice, including "How High The Moon", Gershwin's "The Man I Love" and , another Number 1 hit, "Taking A Chance On Love", by Vernon Duke. After two years, Helen felt herself unable to cope any further with Goodman's abuse and left to join trumpet playing bandleader Harry James in what became a very productive collaboration.
Unlike her previous employers, James didn't merely utilize Helen as a band vocalist, but as jazz critic George T. Simon put it, he built "the arrangements around his horn and Helen's voice, establishing warmer moods by slowing down the tempo so that two, instead of the usual three or more choruses, would fill a record ...many an arrangement would build to a closing climax during Helen's vocal, so that she would emerge as its star" (p.270, "The Big Bands", 1968). Helen recorded several top hits with the band, notably "Skylark", "I Don't Want To Walk Without You" and "I've Heard That Song Before". She was frequently paired with the band's main male vocalist, Buenos Aires-born crooner Dick Haymes, performing duets such as "Long Ago And Far Away". At this time, Helen was also showcased in several colourful motion pictures as part of 'Harry James and His Music Makers' , singing one of her most enduring numbers (and the title of her autobiography, co-written with Bill Libby) "I Had The Craziest Dream" in Springtime in the Rockies (1942). The film starred Betty Grable, who eventually became Mrs. Harry James. Helen, who had been romantically involved with James, left the band in late 1943 to pursue a solo career.
During the next few years, Helen free-lanced, playing in clubs and theatres and teaming up with Haymes for a popular radio show. As the big band era drew to a close, she became less active as a recording artist, though, in 1955, Helen briefly rejoined the James orchestra to record some of their earlier hits together on a new compendium LP, entitled 'Harry James in Hi Fi'. In the early 60's, she went on tour with the Sam Donahue-led orchestra of Tommy Dorsey, then, in 1964, with Frank Sinatra. Helen had a stroke in 1980, but still went on to work on her final album, 'Now and Forever', which was released in 1983. Rheumatoid arthritis eventually necessitated her retirement and she died in July 1999 at the age of 82. To this day, Helen Forrest is regarded by many as the most outstanding female vocalist of the swing era.- Music Artist
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Jamie Cullum was born on 20 August 1979 in Rochford, Essex, England, UK. He is a music artist and actor, known for Gran Torino (2008), Meet the Robinsons (2007) and Going in Style (2017). He has been married to Sophie Dahl since 9 January 2010. They have two children.- Actress
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She was Stan Kenton's big band singer, replacing Anita O'Day in 1945. She also worked with Bruce Boyd Raeburn and his orchestra before she joined the Kenton band. This blonde, blue-eyed singer is one of the most talented female singers in the history of jazz. She recorded many albums for Capitol records in the fifties, the most famous: "Something Cool" in 1953-54. In the following years, she recorded other classic albums for the "Cool Jazz" in Capitol: "The Misty Miss Christy" in 1956, "Fair and Warmer" in 1957, "The Song is June" in 1958 and "Off Beat" in 1960 - all albums with the arranger being Pete Rugolo, who was Stan Kenton's arranger in the forties. She went into semi-retirement in the sixties and recorded her last album in 1977.- Actress
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One of the great jazz vocalists of all time, Lee Wiley was possessed of a wonderful warm, sensuous and somewhat smoky voice and was able to project more emotion into her songs than most of her contemporaries. She rose to fame at a young age in the 1930's, singing with the bands of Leo Reisman (at the Central Park Casino), Paul Whiteman (radio shows) and Glen Gray's Casa Loma Orchestra. She also recorded with Johnny Green and film composer Victor Young, a collaboration which resulted in her writing the lyrics for 'Anytime,Anyday,Anywhere', 'Got the South in My Soul' and 'Eerie Moan'.
Throughout the 1940's, Lee did prodigious recordings of standards by George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Rogers & Hart and others. She interpreted them in her uniquely intimate way, invariably backed by small combos of first rate musicians, such as Bud Freeman, Fats Waller, Billy Butterfield and Eddie Condon. Her renditions of 'Can't Get Out of This Mood', 'How Long Has This Been Going On?' and 'As Time Goes By' are possibly the best versions ever recorded. In June 1943, Lee married pianist and bandleader Jess Stacy, but this union only lasted four years. In the 1950's, she made fewer recordings, though her two RCA albums arranged by Ralph Burns, West of the Moon (1956) and A Touch of Blues (1957), are stand outs. Lee Wiley effectively stepped out of the limelight in the 1960's, except for a brief appearance at the 1972 New York Jazz Festival. She died of colon cancer, aged 67. A unique talent, she merited greater fame than was accorded her in her lifetime and since.- Actress
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Madeleine Peyroux was born on 1 January 1973 in Athens, Georgia, USA. She is an actress, known for From Paris with Love (2010), Definitely, Maybe (2008) and Failure to Launch (2006).- Actress
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Melody Gardot was born on 2 February 1985 in New Jersey, USA. She is an actress, known for 360 (2011), The Line (2009) and The Starling (2021).- Music Artist
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Multi-platinum artist Michael Bublé grew up near Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He was introduced to swing music and old standards by his grandfather, who offered his services for free as a professional plumber to musicians who were willing to let Michael sing a couple of songs with them on stage.
He got his big break in show business after former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney discovered his music. At 10 years of struggling, the discovery came at a time when distraught Michael was considering giving up a career in music and getting a job in media. His performance at a corporate gig in summer 2000 impressed Michael McSweeney, speech writer/right hand man to Brian Mulroney, and told Mcsweeney to feel free to use his independent CD as a coaster if he didn't like it. Mcsweeney gave the CD to Brian & Mila Mulroney, which led to an invitation to sing at their daughter's wedding, where he was introduced to music producer David Foster, who took him under his wing.
His self-titled debut album came out February 12, 2003 and has since won several music awards and incredible worldwide success.
He also well known for his support of feminism.- Actress
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Jazz singer Nancy Wilson, a three-time Grammy Award-winner, was born on February 20, 1937 in Chillicothe, Ohio to iron-worker Olden Wilson and the former Lillian Ryan, who worked as a domestic servant. Nancy was the first of six children. Her father's love of music and the records he played at home were a huge influence on Nancy as a young girl. She already knew she would be a singer by the time she was four years old, and developed her talent by singing in the church choir.
She won a TV-talent show when she 15, and began appearing regularly on the Tv show "Skyline Melodies" while still in high school. She began working in night clubs at that same age.
After graduating from high school, the 17-year old Nancy matriculated for one year at Ohio's Central State College (now Central State University) before dropping out and becoming a professional singer. She recorded her first record with Rusty Bryant's Carolyn Club Big Band in 1956, with whom she toured from 1956 to 1958. While in the group, Nancy made her first recording with Dot Records.
Cannonball Adderley told her to move to New York to further her career, and she went to The Big Town in 1959. Within a month, she got a job singing at The Blue Morocco Night Club on Boston Road in The Bronx, where Adderley's agent heard her and signed her. He obtained a contract for with Capitol records in 1960, and she made her debut that year with the single. "Guess Who I Saw Today."
Her records were successful, and Capitol issued five Nancy Wilson albums in two years. Initially focusing on rhythm and blues, under Adderley's influence, she moved away from R&B and embraced jazz and torch songs. Their 1962 collaboration "Nancy Wilson and Cannonball Adderley" helped propel her to the top, and she had her breakout hit, "Tell Me the Truth," in 1963. This brought her a gig at New York's Coconut Grove, the premier night club in America, the following year, and she became a star.
Her 1964 song "(You Don't Know) How Glad I Am" reached #11 on Billboard's Hot 100 singles chart. Eventually, she charted 11 songs in the Hot 100. Nancy also placed four albums in Billboard's Top LP charts between March 1964 and June 1965.
She won her first Grammy in 1964, for best R&B recording for her LP "How Glad I Am." Nancy continued recording into the 21st Century, winning Best Jazz Vocal Grammy Awards for her albums "R.S.V.P. (Rare Songs, Very Personal)" (2005) and "Turned to Blue" (2007). She retired from live performance in 2011.
In addition to singing, Nancy Wilson also is an actress. She made numerous appearances on American TV. She also made a one-off appearance on the BBC with The Nancy Wilson Show (1966) in 1966 that was turned into a soundtrack album.
Nancy was married twice, to drummer Kenny Dennis from 1960-70. They had one child. She married the Presbyterian minister Wiley Burton in 1973. Married 35 years until his death in 2008, they had two children.- Music Artist
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Nat King Cole was born Nathaniel Adams Coles (he later dropped the "s" in his surname) in Montgomery, Alabama. He received music lessons from his mother and his family moved to Chicago when he was only five, where his father, Edward James Coles, was a minister at the True Light Baptist Church and later Pastor of the First Baptist Church. At 12, he was playing the church organ. At age 14, he formed a 14 piece band called the Royal Dukes. Nat was a top flight sandlot baseball player at Wendell Phillips high school in Chicago.
His three brothers, Ike, Frankie, and Eddie Cole, also played the piano and sang professionally. Nat was an above-average football player in high school. His sister, Evelyn Cole, was a beautician in nearby Waukegan, Illinois. In 1939 he formed the King Cole Trio after his publicist put a silver tin-foiled crown on his head and proclaimed him "King". He later toured Europe and made a command performance before Queen Elizabeth II.
He had a highly-rated TV show in the 1950s but it was canceled (by Cole himself) as no companies could be found that were willing to sponsor the show. He was a big baseball fan and had a permanent box seat at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. He met his wife Maria Cole (a big-band singer) at the Zanzibar nightclub in Los Angeles through Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson show. Her parents opposed her decision to marry Cole, claiming he was "too black". They married, nonetheless, in 1948, and had two daughters, Caroline and Natalie Cole. On April 10, 1956, at Birmingham, Alabama, he was attacked by six white men from a white supremacist group called the White Cizizens Council during a concert and sustained minor injuries to his back. Cole appeared in several movies, the last of which was Cat Ballou (1965), starring Lee Marvin.
Cole received 28 gold record awards for such hits as "Sweet Lorraine", "Ramblin' Rose" in 1962, "Too Young" in 1951, "Mona Lisa" in 1949 and Mel Tormé's "Christmas Song". His first recordings of the Christmas Song included the lyrics, "Reindeers really know how to fly" instead of "reindeer really know how to fly", a mistake later corrected by Capitol Records. He was also a composer and his song "Straighten Up and Fly Right" was sold for $50.00. A heavy smoker, he died of lung cancer.- Music Artist
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Nina Simone was born on 21 February 1933 in Tryon, North Carolina, USA. She was a music artist and actress, known for Point of No Return (1993), Repo Men (2010) and Miami Vice (2006). She was married to Andrew Stroud and Donald Ross. She died on 21 April 2003 in Carry-le-Rouet, Bouches-du-Rhône, France.- Music Artist
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Peggy Lee was Born Norma Dolores Egstrom in Jamestown, North Dakota, on May 26, 1920. At age four her mother died. Peggy's father, a railroad station agent, remarried but later left home, leaving Peggy's care entrusted to a stepmother who physically abused her. Peggy later memorialized this in the calypso number "One Beating a Day", one of 22 songs she co-wrote for the autobiographical musical "Peg", in which she made her Broadway debut in 1983 at the age of 62. As a youngster Peggy worked as a milkmaid, later turning to singing for money in her teens. While singing on a local radio station in Fargo, the program director there suggested she change her name to Peggy Lee. Peggy's big break came when Benny Goodman hired her to sing with his band after hearing her perform. Peggy shot to stardom when she and Goodman cut the hit record "Why Don't You Do Right?" and went out on her own to record such classics as "Fever", "Lover", "Golden Earrings", "Big Spender" and "Is That All There Is?" - the latter winning her a Grammy Award in 1969. Peggy's vocal style provided a distinctive imprint to countless swing tunes, ballads and big band numbers. She was considered the type of performer equally capable of interpreting a song as uniquely as Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Bessie Smith. Her 1989 album, "Peggy Sings the Blues", was a Grammy Award nominee. Peggy was a prolific songwriter and arranger and her 1990 "The Peggy Lee Songbook" contained four songs she wrote with guitarist John Chiodini. Peggy also wrote for jazz greats Duke Ellington, who called her "The Queen", and Johnny Mercer, and composer Quincy Jones. Also in 1990 Peggy was awarded the coveted Pied Piper Award presented by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). She made her mark in Hollywood as an actress, winning an Academy Award nomination for her role as the hard-drinking singer in the jazz saga, Pete Kelly's Blues (1955) and composed songs for the 1955 Walt Disney animated classic Lady and the Tramp (1955). The animated film featured a character named Peg, a broken-down old showgirl of a dog, whose provocative walk was based on the stage-prowl of Peggy Lee. Later she sued Disney and won a landmark legal judgment for a portion of the profits from the videocassette sale of the film. Peggy's private life was racked by physical ailments, a near-fatal fall in 1976, diabetes and a stroke in 1998. She was married four times, all ending in divorce. She and first husband, guitarist Dave Barbour, had a daughter, Nicki, her only child. Peggy and Dave were on the verge of a reconciliation in 1965, but he died of a heart attack before the couple got back together. Peggy has left a vast legend of music that is constantly finding new generations of fans.- Actress
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Sarah Vaughan was born March 27, 1924 in Newark, NJ, and died April 3, 1990, in Los Angeles of lung cancer. Her parents were Asbury, a carpenter, and Ada, a laundress. She began studying music when she was seven, taking eight years of piano lessons and two years of organ. As a child she sang in the choir at the Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Newark and played piano and organ in high school productions at Arts High School. She entered an amateur contest at the Apollo Theater in New York's Harlem area, singing "Body and Soul", and won the $10 prize and a week's engagement at the Apollo. From 1944 to 1945, she sang with Billy Eckstine and in 1947 she married her manager, trumpeter George Treadwell. Her later husbands included pro football player Clyde Atkins and trumpeter Waymon Reed. She received many awards, including an Emmy in 1981 for a tribute to George Gershwin and a Grammy in 1983.- Actress
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Stacey Kent was born on 27 March 1968 in South Orange, New Jersey, USA. She is an actress, known for Prime (2005), Richard III (1995) and Scene Stealers (2004). She has been married to Jim Tomlinson since 9 August 1991.- Actress
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Lena Calhoun Horne was born June 30, 1917, in Brooklyn, New York. In her biography she stated that, on the day she was born, her father was in the midst of a card game trying to get money to pay the hospital costs. Her parents divorced while she was still a toddler. Her mother left later in order to find work as an actress and Lena was left in the care of her grandparents. When she was seven, her mother returned and the two traveled around the state which meant that Lena was enrolled in numerous schools. For a time she also attended schools in Florida, Georgia and Ohio. Later she returned to Brooklyn.
Lena quit school when she was 14 and got her first stage job at 16 dancing and later singing at the famed Cotton Club in Harlem, a renowned theater in which black performers played before white audiences immortalized in The Cotton Club (1984)). She was in good hands at the club, especially when people such as Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington took her under their wings and helped her over the rough spots. Before long, her talent resulted in her playing before packed houses.
If Lena had never made a movie, her music career would have been enough to have ensured her legendary status in the entertainment industry, but films were icing on the cake. After she made an appearance on Broadway, Hollywood came calling. At 21 years of age, Lena made her first film, The Duke Is Tops (1938). It would be four more years before she appeared in another, Panama Hattie (1942), playing a singer in a nightclub. By now Lena had signed with MGM but, unfortunately for her, the pictures were shot so that her scenes could be cut out when they were shown in the South since most theaters in the South refused to show films that portrayed blacks in anything other than subservient roles to whites. Most movie studios did not want to take a chance on losing that particular source of revenue. Lena did not want to appear in those kinds of stereotyped roles and who could blame her?
In 1943, MGM loaned Lena to 20th Century-Fox to play the role of Selina Rogers in the all-black musical Stormy Weather (1943), which did extremely well at the box office. Her rendition of the title song became a major hit on the musical charts. In 1943, she appeared in Cabin in the Sky (1943), regarded by many as one of the finest performances of her career. She played Georgia Brown opposite Ethel Waters and Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson in the all black production. Rumors were rampant that she and Waters just did not get along well, although there was never any mention of the source of the alleged friction. However, that was not the only feud on that picture. Other cast members sniped at one another and it was a wonder the film was made at all. Regardless of the hostilities, the movie was released to very good reviews from the ever tough critics. It went a long way in showing the depth of the talent that existed among black performers in Hollywood, especially Lena.
Lena's musical career flourished, but her movie career stagnated. Minor roles in films such as Boogie-Woogie Dream (1944), Words and Music (1948) and Mantan Messes Up (1946) did little to advance her film career, due mainly to the ingrained racist attitudes of the time. Even at the height of Lena's musical career, she was often denied rooms at the very hotels in which she performed because they would not let blacks stay there. After Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956), Lena left films to concentrate on music and the stage. She returned in 1969 as Claire Quintana in Death of a Gunfighter (1969). Nine years later, she returned to the screen again in the all black musical The Wiz (1978) where she played Glinda the Good Witch. Although that was her last big-screen appearance, she stayed busy in television appearing in A Century of Women (1994) and That's Entertainment! III (1994).
Had it not been for the prevailing racial attitudes during the time when Lena was just starting her career, it's fair to say that it would have been much bigger and come much sooner. Even taking those factors into account, Lena Horne is still one of the most respected, talented and beautiful performers of all time.- Actress
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Julie London recorded 32 albums during her career. Forced to give up band singing when her true age was discovered, she was primarily a torch singer. Her vocal range was described by "sultry" and "low-keyed". Her own favorite singers were Barbra Streisand and Roberta Flack.
She was known in some circles as "The Liberty Girl" for helping establish Liberty Records, where she began singing in 1955, as a successful label. Her many hit albums on that label include "Julie Is Her Name", "Calendar Girl" with some borderline erotic (for the time) cover photography by Gene Lester, "About the Blues", "Your Number, Please", "Send For Me", "Love Letters", "The End of the World", "In Person at the Americana", "The Wonderful World of Julie London" and the provocatively titled "Nice Girls Don't Stay for Breakfast".
Her most popular song, "Cry Me a River", was written by her former classmate/boyfriend Arthur Hamilton and produced by Bobby Troup. Her four most-sought-after and successful albums are "About the Blues (1957), "Feeling Good" (1965), "Easy Does It" (1968) and "Yummy, Yummy, Yummy" (1969). (Her version of "Yummy Yummy Yummy" was featured on the HBO television series Six Feet Under (2001).) Billboard Magazine named her the most popular female vocalist for 1955, 1956 and 1957".- Actor
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A professional singer at the age of three, Mel Torme was a genuine musical prodigy. As a teenager, he played the drums in Chico Marx's band and earned the nickname "The Velvet Fog" because of his smooth, mellow tenor voice. In the 1940s, he formed his own group, the Mel-Tones, one of the first jazz-influenced vocal groups. As a solo musician, he had a number one hit in 1949 called "Careless Hands" and several lesser hits. He also acted in films and wrote several books, including biographies of Judy Garland and Buddy Rich. Torme's career included some songwriting, too. One of his most well-known compositions, "The Christmas Song", was written in midsummer as Torme relaxed by the pool.- Actress
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Anita O'Day was born on 18 October 1919 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for Shortbus (2006), Zig Zag (1970) and The Gene Krupa Story (1959). She was married to Carl Hoff and Don Carter. She died on 23 November 2006 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actress
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One of America's most loved actresses was born Doris Mary Kappelhoff on April 3, 1922, in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Alma Sophia (Welz), a housewife, and William Joseph Kappelhoff, a music teacher and choir master. Her grandparents were all German immigrants. She had two brothers, Richard, who died before she was born and Paul, a few years older.
Her parents divorced while she was still a child, and she lived with her mother. Like most little girls, Doris liked to dance. At fourteen, she formed a dance act with a boy, Jerry Doherty, and they won $500 in a local talent contest. She and Jerry took a brief trip to Hollywood to test the waters. They felt they could succeed, so she and Jerry returned to Cincinnati with the intention of packing and making a permanent move to Hollywood. Tragically, the night before she was to move to Hollywood, she was injured riding in a car hit by a train, ending the possibility of a dancing career.
It was a terrible setback, but after taking singing lessons she found a new vocation, and at age 17, she began touring with the Les Brown Band. She met trombonist Al Jorden, whom she married in 1941. Jorden was prone to violence and they divorced after two years, not long after the birth of their son Terry. In 1946, Doris married George Weidler, but this union lasted less than a year. Day's agent talked her into taking a screen test at Warner Bros. The executives there liked what they saw and signed her to a contract (her early credits are often confused with those of another actress named Doris Day, who appeared mainly in B westerns in the 1930s and 1940s).
Her first starring movie role was in Romance on the High Seas (1948). The next year, she made two more films, My Dream Is Yours (1949) and It's a Great Feeling (1949). Audiences took to her beauty, terrific singing voice and bubbly personality, and she turned in fine performances in the movies she made (in addition to several hit records). She made three films for Warner Bros. in 1950 and five more in 1951. In that year, she met and married Martin Melcher, who adopted her young son Terry, who later grew up to become Terry Melcher, a successful record producer.
In 1953, Doris starred in Calamity Jane (1953), which was a major hit, and several more followed: Lucky Me (1954), Love Me or Leave Me (1955), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) and what is probably her best-known film, Pillow Talk (1959). She began to slow down her filmmaking pace in the 1960s, even though she started out the decade with a hit, Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1960).
In 1958, her brother Paul died. Around this time, her husband, who had also taken charge of her career, had made deals for her to star in films she didn't really care about, which led to a bout with exhaustion. The 1960s weren't to be a repeat of the previous busy decade. She didn't make as many films as she had in that decade, but the ones she did make were successful: Do Not Disturb (1965), The Glass Bottom Boat (1966), Where Were You When the Lights Went Out? (1968) and With Six You Get Eggroll (1968). Martin Melcher died in 1968, and Doris never made another film, but she had been signed by Melcher to do her own TV series, The Doris Day Show (1968). That show, like her movies, was successful, lasting until 1973. After her series went off the air, she made only occasional TV appearances.
By the time Martin Melcher died, Doris discovered she was millions of dollars in debt. She learned that Melcher had squandered virtually all of her considerable earnings, but she was eventually awarded $22 million by the courts in a case against a man that Melcher had unwisely let invest her money. She married for the fourth time in 1976 and since her divorce in 1980 has devoted her life to animals.
Doris was a passionate animal rights activist. She ran Doris Day Animal League in Carmel, California, which advocates homes and proper care of household pets.
Doris died on May 13, 2019, in Carmel Valley Village, California. She was 97.