25 Oct 2019
Radio, Recording Permalink

Andy Williams

October 25, 2019

In memory of singer Andy Williams, flowers were placed on his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Wednesday, September 26, 2012. The star is located at 6667 Hollywood Boulevard. Andy Williams was honored with $1,755th star in Recording on November 3, 1982. “Rest in Peace, Mr. Williams!” Ana Martinez, producer of the Hollywood Walk of Fame signed the card on behalf of the Hollywood Historic Trust and the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.

 

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Howard Andrew "Andy" Williams is an American pop singer. Andy Williams has recorded 18 Gold and three Platinum certified albums. He had his own TV variety show from 1962?71 in which he performed with Michael Jackson, Bobby Darin, Ray Charles, Elton John, Ella Fitzgerald, Simon & Garfunkel, Mama Cass, Shirley Bassey, Bing Crosby, The Osmonds, Dusty Springfield, Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin, The Carpenters, Jack Benny, Bette Davis, Dean Martin, Bob Hope, Ronald Reagan and many other superstars. He also owns his own theater, the Moon River Theatre in Branson, Missouri.

Williams was born in Wall Lake, Iowa, the son of Jay Emerson and Florence Williams. He first performed in a children's choir at the local Presbyterian church. Williams and his three older brothers Bob, Don, and Dick formed the Williams Brothers quartet in the late 1930s, and they performed on radio in the Midwest, first at WHO in Des Moines, Iowa, and later at WLS in Chicago and WLW in Cincinnati. Williams graduated from Western Hills High School in Cincinnati and his brother was engaged to Gene Ingram's car-pool partner, Peggy. The Williams Brothers appeared with Bing Crosby on the hit record "Swinging on a Star". This led to a nightclub act with entertainer Kay Thompson from 1947 to 1951.

Williams' solo career began in 1953. He recorded six sides for RCA Victor's label "X," but none of them were popular hits.

After finally landing a spot as a regular on Steve Allen's Tonight Show in 1954, he was signed to a recording contract with Cadence Records, a small label in New York run by conductor Archie Bleyer. His third single, "Canadian Sunset" reached #7 in the Top Ten in August 1956, and was soon followed by his only Billboard #1 hit, "Butterfly" in February 1957. More hits followed, including "The Hawaiian Wedding Song", "Are You Sincere", "The Village of St. Bernadette", "Lonely Street", and "I Like Your Kind Of Love" with Peggy Powers before Williams moved to Columbia Records in 1961, having moved from New York to Los Angeles and gaining another hit with "Can't Get Used to Losing You". In terms of chart popularity, the Cadence era was Williams' peak although songs he introduced on Columbia became much bigger standards. Two top ten hits from the Cadence era, "Butterfly" and "I Like Your Kind of Love" were apparently believed to not suit Williams' later style; they were not included on a Columbia reissue of his Cadence greatest hits in the 1960s.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

Angela Bassett

October 25, 2019

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Angela Evelyn Bassett is an American actress. She has become well-known for her biographical film roles portraying real life women in African American culture, perhaps most prominently as singer Tina Turner in the motion picture What’s Love Got to Do with It, as well as her portrayal of Betty Shabazz in the films Malcolm X and Panther, Rosa Parks in the The Rosa Parks Story, Katherine Jackson in the miniseries The Jacksons: An American Dream and Voletta Wallace in the film Notorious.

Bassett was born in Harlem and relocated to St. Petersburg, Florida as a child. She and her sister D’nette were raised by their social worker/civil servant mother, Betty. As her interest in entertainment developed, she and her sister would often put on shows, reading poems or performing popular music for their family. At Boca Ciega High School, Bassett was a cheerleader and a member of the debate team, student government, drama club and choir.

Bassett attended Yale University and received her B.A. degree in African-American studies in 1980. In 1983, she earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Yale School of Drama. At Yale, Bassett met her future husband Courtney B. Vance, a 1986 graduate of the drama school. After graduation, Bassett worked as a receptionist for a beauty salon and as a photo researcher.

Bassett soon looked for acting work in the New York theater. One of her first New York performances came in 1985 when she appeared in J. E. Franklin’s Black Girl at Second Stage Theatre. She appeared in two August Wilson plays at the Yale Repertory Theatre under the direction of her long-time instructor Lloyd Richards. The Wilson plays featuring Bassett were Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. In 2006, she had the opportunity to work on the Wilson canon again, starring in Fences alongside longtime collaborator Laurence Fishburne at the Pasadena Playhouse in California.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

Angela Lansbury

October 25, 2019

Angela Brigid Lansbury, CBE is an English actress and singer whose career has spanned seven decades. Her first film appearance was in Gaslight as a conniving maid, for which she received an Academy Award nomination. Among her other films are The Manchurian Candidate, Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Beauty and the Beast. She expanded her repertoire to Broadway and television in the 1950s and was particularly successful in Broadway productions of , Mame and Sweeney Todd. Lansbury is perhaps best known for her role as writer Jessica Fletcher on the U.S. television series Murder, She Wrote, in which she starred from 1984 to 1996. Her recent roles include Lady Adelaide Stitch in the 2005 film Nanny McPhee, Leona Mullen in the 2007 Broadway play Deuce, Madame Arcati in the 2009 Broadway revival of the play Blithe Spirit and Madame Armfeldt in the 2010 Broadway revival of the musical A Little Night Music.

Respected for her versatility, Lansbury has won five Tony Awards, six Golden Globes, and has been nominated for numerous other industry awards, including the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress on three occasions, and eighteen Emmy Awards.

Angela Brigid Lansbury was born in Poplar, London, to Belfast-born actress Moyna MacGill and Edgar Lansbury, a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain and former mayor of the London borough of Poplar. Her paternal grandfather was the Labour Party leader George Lansbury. She is the elder sister of producer Edgar Lansbury and a cousin of the late English animator and puppeteer Oliver Postgate. Her cousin, the academic Coral Lansbury, was the mother of former Australian federal Opposition Leader and noted republican Malcolm Turnbull. She was raised in both the Anglican and Episcopal churches.

25 Oct 2019
Recording, Television Permalink

Allan Jones

October 25, 2019

Allan Jones was an American actor and singer. For many years he was married to actress Irene Hervey; their son is American pop singer Jack Jones.

Jones, of Welsh ancestry, starred in many film musicals during the 1930s and 1940s. The best-known of these were Show Boat, and The Firefly. However, he is now best remembered as the romantic to the Marx Brothers in their first two MGM productions, A Night at the Opera, and A Day at the Races.

On the strength of his appearance in A Night at the Opera, however, he won the coveted role of Gaylord Ravenal in the 1936 film version of Show Boat, right out from under the noses of such screen musical favorites as Nelson Eddy and John Boles, neither of whom were noted for their acting. This was to become Jones’s most distinguished screen role, in which, under the direction of James Whale, he was to display dramatic acting ability as well as musical talent.

He made a brief appearance in the 1936 Nelson Eddy – Jeanette MacDonald film Rose Marie, singing music from Charles Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette and Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca, but according to Merchant of Dreams, Charles Higham’s biography of Louis B. Mayer, Eddy, who apparently considered Jones a rival and a potential threat, asked that most of Jones’s footage in Rose Marie be cut, including his rendition of the great Puccini aria E lucevan le stelle – and MGM agreed to Eddy’s demand.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

Allen Ludden

October 25, 2019

Allen Ludden, born Allen Packard Ellsworth, was an American television personality, emcee and game show host, perhaps most well-known for hosting various incarnations of the game show Password between 1961 and 1980.

Allen Packard Ellsworth was born on October 5, 1917, in Mineral Point, Wisconsin, the first child of Elmer Ellsworth, 25, a Nebraska native living in Mineral Point and working as an ice dealer; and his wife Leila M. Allen, age 22, a Wisconsin native and housewife. Tragically, Elmer Ellsworth died the next winter at age 26, a victim of the worldwide influenza epidemic, on January 6, 1919. When Allen was about five years old, Leila Ellsworth married Homer Ludden Jr., an electrical engineer and the son of H.D. Ludden, the town physician, a Chicago native who had practiced in Mineral Point since 1906. Allen was given his adoptive father’s name and became Allen E. Ludden. The family lived briefly in the small Wisconsin towns of Janesville, Elkhorn, Antigo and Waupaca before moving to Texas when Allen was still a small child.

An English and dramatics major at the University of Texas, Ludden graduated with Phi Beta Kappa honors in 1940 and received his Master of Arts in English from the same university in 1941. He served in the U.S. Army, received a Bronze Star, and was discharged with the rank of captain in 1946. During the late 1940s and early 1950s he carved out a career as an adviser for youth in teen magazine columns and on radio. His radio show for teenagers, Mind Your Manners, received a Peabody Award in 1950.

Ludden hosted many game shows, including the GE College Bowl, but he was most well-known for hosting both the daytime and prime time versions of Password on CBS and ABC between 1961 and 1975. His opening TV catch phrase, “Hi doll,” was directed toward his beloved real-life mother-in-law, Tess White, mother of Betty White. He ended Password with a “password of the day,” and then “So long, see you tomorrow, I hope.” Ludden began hosting an updated version of the game, Password Plus, on NBC, in 1979, but chemotherapy treatments for stomach cancer forced him off the show in late October 1980. Tom Kennedy filled in as host during this time. Other shows hosted by Ludden include Liar’s Club, Win With the Stars, and Stumpers! He also hosted the original pilot for The Joker’s Wild and hosted a talk-variety show, Allen Ludden’s Gallery.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures Permalink

Alma Rubens

October 25, 2019

Alma Rubens was an American silent film actress and stage performer.

Born to John B. and Theresa Hayes Rueben in San Francisco, California, she performed since youth and became a star at the age of 19. She was educated at the Sacred Heart Convent in San Francisco. Her mother, Theresa, born in December 1871 in San Francisco, was of Irish heritage. Her father, John Ruebens, born in 1857 in Germany, was Jewish, and emigrated to the United States in 1890. An older sister, Hazel, was born in 1893. Although some biographies erroneously state that her birth name was Genevieve Driscoll, Driscoll was in fact her maternal grandmother’s maiden name.

In 1918, Alma announced that she was changing the spelling of her last of Rueben to “Rubens”, because it caused too much confusion in the movie industry and in publications. Alma’s first stage opportunity came in 1917, when a chorus girl in a comedy became ill; the young aspirant was called on to replace her merely because she happened to be there. Soon the stock company came to Los Angeles, California. After a short time, Rubens left the troupe on the advice of Franklyn Farnum, a member of the stock company. Farnum was given a motion picture role and persuaded Rubens to follow him into movies.

Her breakthrough performance was in 1916 in the movie Reggie Mixes In. She made six more films in that same year. In 1917 she starred in The Firefly of Tough Luck, which was a big success. She gained notoriety when she became Douglas Fairbanks’ leading lady in The Half Breed and supported Fairbanks and Bessie Love in the cocaine comedy The Mystery of the Leaping Fish later that same year. Soon she completed The World and His Wife, opposite Montague Love. She continued to work successfully until 1924. In that year she starred in The Price She Paid and Cytherea. She retired temporarily from the screen in 1926.

25 Oct 2019
Recording Permalink

Amelita Galli-Curci

October 25, 2019

Amelita Galli-Curci was an Italian operatic coloratura soprano. She was one of the best regarded singers of the early 20th century.

She was born as Amelita Galli into an upper-middle-class family in Milan, where she studied piano at the Milan Conservatory, winning a gold medal and at the age of sixteen was offered a position as professor. She was inspired to sing by her grandmother. Operatic composer Pietro Mascagni also encouraged Galli-Curci’s singing career. By her own choice, Galli-Curci’s singing was largely self-trained, from listening to other sopranos, reading old singing method books, and practicing piano exercises with her voice.

Galli-Curci made her operatic debut in 1906 at Trani, as Gilda in Rigoletto and she rapidly became acclaimed throughout Italy.

In 1908 she married the Marchese Luigi Curci, and added his last name to hers. They divorced in 1920 and the following year, Galli-Curci married Homer Samuels, her accompanist. In 1922 the Marchese Curci petitioned the papal council in Rome for an annulment.

25 Oct 2019
Recording, Television Permalink

Amy Grant

October 25, 2019

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Amy Grant is an American singer-songwriter, musician, author, media personality and occasional actress, best known for her Christian music. She has been referred to as “The Queen of Christian Pop”. As of 2009, Grant remains the best-selling contemporary Christian music singer ever, having sold over 30 million units worldwide.

Grant made her debut as a teenager, and gained fame in Christian music during the 1980s with such hits as “Father’s Eyes,” “El Shaddai”, and “Angels”. During the 1980s and 1990s, she became one of the first gospel artists to cross over into mainstream pop on the heels of her successful albums Unguarded and Heart in Motion, the latter of which included the number-one singles “Baby Baby” and “Every Heartbeat”.

Grant has won six Grammy Awards, 25 Gospel Music Association Dove Awards, and had the first Christian album ever to go Platinum. Heart in Motion is her highest selling album, with over five million copies sold in the United States alone. She was honored with a star on Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2005 for her contributions to the entertainment industry.

Born Amy Lee Grant, the youngest of four sisters, in Augusta, Georgia. The Grant family would settle in Nashville, Tennessee in 1967.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures Permalink

Anatole Litvak

October 25, 2019

Anatole Litvak was a Jewish Russian-born filmmaker who wrote, directed, and produced films in a various countries and languages. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director for the film The Snake Pit. He was born Mikhail Anatol Litwak into a Jewish family in the city of Kiev in what was then part of the Russian Empire. As a teenager, he worked at a theater in St. Petersburg and took acting lessons at the State drama school. Before the rise of the Nazis, he lived and worked in Germany where he made his first few films at the beginning of the 1930s, but quickly fled to England and France, where he made several successful films leading to a contract offer from a Hollywood studio. In 1940, his film All This and Heaven Too was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Picture.

Litvak served with the United States Army during World War II and joined with fellow director Frank Capra to make the Why We Fight film series. Because of Litvak’s ability to speak Russian, German, and French, he played a key role as the head of the army’s photography division responsible for documenting the U.S. D-Day landing on Normandy.

At the end of the war, he returned to filmmaking and, in 1948, Litvak was Oscar nominated as Best Director for The Snake Pit. This film and his 1951 production of Decision Before Dawn were both nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. After the mid-1950s, he began filming in Europe. Most notable was Anastasia filmed in Paris and starring Ingrid Bergman, Yul Brynner and Helen Hayes. The film was a fictitious imagining of the mystery surrounding the Grand Duchess Anastasia. The movie enjoyed huge commercial success. In 1961, at the Cannes Film Festival his Goodbye Again was nominated for the Palme d’Or.

25 Oct 2019
Recording Permalink

André Kostelanetz

October 25, 2019

André Kostelanetz was a popular orchestral music conductor and arranger, one of the pioneers of easy listening music.

Born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, Kostelanetz escaped in 1922 after the Russian Revolution. He arrived in the United States that year, and in the 1920s, conducted concerts for radio. In the 1930s, he began his own weekly show on CBS, André Kostelanetz Presents.

Kostelanetz was known for arranging and recording light classical music pieces for mass audiences, as well as orchestral versions of songs and Broadway show tunes. He made numerous recordings over the course of his career, which had sales of over 50 million and became staples of beautiful music radio stations. For many years, Kostelanetz also conducted the New York Philharmonic in pops concerts and recordings, in which they were billed as Andre Kostelanetz and His Orchestra.

André Kostelanetz may be best-known to modern audiences for a series of easy listening instrumental albums on Columbia Records from the 1940s until 1980. Kostelanetz actually started making this music before there was a genre called “easy listening”. He continued until after some of his contemporaries, including Mantovani, had stopped recording.