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900 Miles
Ramblin Jack Elliot

I'm walking down this track,
I've got tears in my eyes,
Trying to read a letter from my home.
If this train runs me right
I'll be home tomorrow night.
I'm nine hundred miles from my home.
And I hate to hear that lonesome whistle blow.

I'll pawn you my watch
And I'll pawn you my chain;
Pawn you my gold diamond ring.
If this train runs me right
I'll be home tomorrow night.
I'm nine hundred miles from my home.
And I hate to hear that lonesome whistle blow.

The train I ride on
Is a thousand coaches long.
You can hear that whistle blow a hundred miles.
If this train runs me right
I'll be home tomorrow night.
I'm nine hundred miles from my home.
And I hate to hear that lonesome whistle blow.

If my woman says so
I will railroad no more
I'll sidetrack my wheeler and go home.
If this train runs me right
I'll be home tomorrow night.
I'm nine hundred miles from my home.
And I hate to hear that lonesome whistle blow.

They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
For trying to change the system from within
Im coming now, Im coming to reward them
First we take manhattan, then we take berlin

Im guided by a signal in the heavens
Im guided by this birthmark on my skin
Im guided by the beauty of our weapons
First we take manhattan, then we take berlin

Id really like to live beside you, baby
I love your body and your spirit and your clothes
But you see that line there moving through the station?
I told you, I told you, told you, I was one of those

Ah you loved me as a loser, but now youre worried that I just might win
You know the way to stop me, but you dont have the discipline
How many nights I prayed for this, to let my work begin
First we take manhattan, then we take berlin

I dont like your fashion business mister
And I dont like these drugs that keep you thin
I dont like what happened to my sister
First we take manhattan, then we take berlin

Id really like to live beside you, baby ...

And I thank you for those items that you sent me
The monkey and the plywood violin
I practiced every night, now Im ready
First we take manhattan, then we take berlin

I am guided

Ah remember me, I used to live for music
Remember me, I brought your groceries in
Well its fathers day and everybodys wounded
First we take manhattan, then we take berlin

Leonard Cohen

Good morning, WA2K listeners and contributors.

edgar, that first song reminded me of another. It goes something like, "...I'm bound to get my baby out of jail..."

Of course, we love your Leonard Cohen song, Texas. Thanks again.

One of the most interesting things about old mountain songs is the history behind them. In searching for the lyrics to "Greenback Dollar", I came across this variation by Joan Baez.

I was born in East Virginia,
North Carolina I did go,
There I met a fair young lady,
And her name I do not know.

Oh, her hair was dark and curly,
And her cheeks were rosy red,
On her breast she wore white lilies,
Where I long to lay my head.

I don't want your greenback dollar,
I don't want your watch and chain,
All I want's your heart darling,
Say you'll take me back again.

The ocean's deep and I can't wade it,
And I have no wings to fly,
I'll just get me a blue eyed boatman,
Or you'll row me over the tide.

I'll go back to East Virginia,
North Carolina ain't my home,
I'll go back to East Virginia,
Leaving North Carolinians alone.

I'll go back to East Virginia,
North Carolina ain't my home,
I'll go back to East Virginia,
Leaving North Carolinians alone.

Theda Bara
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Birth name Theodosia Burr Goodman
Born July 29, 1885
Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Died April 17, 1955 (aged 69)
Los Angeles, California, USA
Years active 1908-1926
Spouse(s) Charles Brabin (1921)

Theda Bara was the stage name of Theodosia Burr Goodman (July 29, 1885 - April 7, 1955), a silent film actress. Movie executives made promotional claims that her stage name was chosen because it is an anagram for "Arab Death." In reality, "Theda" was a childhood nickname for Theodosia. "Bara" was a shortened form of her maternal grandfather's last name, Baranger.

Bara was one of the most popular screen actresses of her era, and was one of cinema's earliest sex symbols. Her femme fatale roles earned her the nickname "The Vamp" (short for vampire). The term "vamp" soon became a popular slang term for a sexually predatory woman. Bara, along with the French film actress Musidora, popularized the vamp persona in the early years of silent film and was soon imitated by rival actresses such as Nita Naldi and Pola Negri.




Biography

Birth

Theodosia Burr Goodman was born in 1885 in the Avondale section of Cincinnati, Ohio. Her father was Bernard Goodman (1853-?) a prosperous Jewish tailor born in Poland . Her mother, Pauline DeCoppett (1861-1957), was born in Switzerland and was also Jewish. They married in 1882. Theda's brother and sister were Marque (1888-?) and Lori [originally Estie] (1897-?). In 1917, all changed their names to "Bara".


Education

She attended Walnut Hills High School in 1899-1903 and lived at 823 Hutchins Avenue. After attending the University of Cincinnati for two years, she worked in theatre productions mainly but did explore other projects, moving to New York City in 1908. She made her Broadway debut in The Devil (1908).


Career

Theda Bara made more than 40 feature films between 1914 and 1926. Complete prints of only six of these films still exist. Most of Bara's films were produced by William Fox, beginning with A Fool There Was in 1914 and ending with The Lure of Ambition in 1919. Her films helped to make Fox Film Corporation a successful studio.

At the height of her fame, Bara was making $4,000 per week for her film performances. She was one of the most famous moviestars, ranking behind only Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford in popularity.[1] Bara's best-known and most popular roles were as "vamp" characters, although she attempted to avoid being typecast by playing more wholesome heroines in films such as Under Two Flags and Her Double Life. She also appeared as Juliet in a version of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

Most of Bara's early films were shot on the East Coast, primarily at the Fox studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Bara lived with her mother and siblings in New York City during this time. The rise of Hollywood as the center of the American film industry forced her to relocate to Los Angeles in 1917 to film the epic Cleopatra. This film became one of Bara's biggest hits. No known prints of Cleopatra exist today, but numerous photographs of Bara in costume as the Queen of the Nile have survived.

Between 1915 and 1919, Bara was promoted heavily by Fox, and was the studio's biggest star. When the studio dropped off their support her career suffered. Bara, tired of being typecast as a vamp, allowed her five-year contract with Fox to expire. Her final film for Fox was The Lure of Ambition in 1919. She left Fox and did not make another film until 1925's The Unchastened Woman, for Chadwick Pictures Corporation. Bara retired after making only one more film, the short comedy, Madame Mystery, in 1926.

Theda Bara is most famous for having a higher percentage of lost films than any other actor/actress with a Hollywood star on the Walk of Fame. Out of her 40 films, 3 remain completely intact. Cleopatra (almost completely lost, 40 seconds remain), Madame Du Barry, Carmen, Salome, and Camille are among the lost. Fortunately, A Fool There Was is preserved (and viewable at YouTube [2]).

She is also one of the most famous completely silent stars. Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford, although mostly silent, were filmed in sound, and none of their sound films have been lost. Bara was never filmed in sound, lost or otherwise.


Sex symbol

Bara is often cited as the first sex symbol[2] of that era, and in a number of her films appeared in risqué transparent costumes that left little to the imagination. [3] Such outfits were banned from Hollywood films after the Hays Code went into effect in 1930.

Bara was photographed in several sittings in skimpy Oriental-themed costumes. It was popular at that time to promote an actress as mysterious and elusive, with an exotic background. The studios promoted Bara with a massive campaign, billing her as the Egyptian-born daughter of a French actress and an Italian sculptor. They claimed she had spent her early years in the Sahara Desert under the shadow of the sphinx, then moved to France to become a stage actress. (Bara had in fact never even been to Egypt or France.) They called her the "Serpent of the Nile" and encouraged Bara to discuss mysticism and the occult in interviews.

At the height of Bara's fame, her vamp image was notorious enough to be referred to in popular songs of the day. A line in "Red-Hot Hannah" said "I know things that Theda Bara's just startin' to learn - make my dresses from asbestos, I'm liable to burn...." The song, "Rebecca Came Back From Mecca", contains the lyrics "She's as bold as Theda Bara; Theda's bare but Becky's bare-er".


Marriage and Retirement

Bara married British-born American film director Charles Brabin (1883-1957) in 1921. Her film career soon began to slow down, finally ending in 1926 with the Hal Roach comedy Madame Mystery. The following year, Bara made a successful but much maligned appearance on Broadway in The Blue Flame.

Though she subsequently expressed interest in returning to the stage or screen, her husband did not consider it proper for his wife to have a career. Bara spent the remainder of her life as a hostess in Hollywood and New York, in comfort and relative wealth.


Death

Bara died of stomach cancer in 1955 in Los Angeles, California and was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. She died under the name "Theda Bara Brabin", and her death certificate incorrectly listed her birthday as "July 22, 1892".


Legacy

Theda Bara has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and in 1994, she was honored with her image on a United States postage stamp designed by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld. In June 1996, two biographies appeared, Ron Genini's Theda Bara: A Biography (McFarland) and Eve Golden's Vamp (Emprise). In October 2005 TimeLine Films of Culver City premiered a film biography, Theda Bara: The Woman With the Hungry Eyes.

A film by British video artist Georgina Starr titled Theda based around Bara's lost films premiered in London in November 2006.[4]

The Fort Lee Film Commission dedicated Main Street and Linwood Avenue in Fort Lee, New Jersey as "Theda Bara Way" in May of 2006 to honor Bara, who made many of her films at the Fox Studio on Linwood and Main.

Theda Bara's image has been the symbol of the Chicago International Film Festival. A stark, black and white close up of her eyes set as repeated frames in a strip of film serves as the logo for the nonprofit festival.

Only a handful of Theda Bara films still exist: The Stain (1914), A Fool There Was (1914), East Lynne (1916), The Unchastened Woman (1925), and two short comedies she made for Hal Roach in the mid-1920s.[5]

Although Bara only appeared in silent films, she did make at least one appearance on radio: The June 8, 1936 broadcast of Lux Radio Theatre, hosted by Cecil B. DeMille.

Lola Albright
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Born July 20, 1925 (1925-07-20)
Akron, Ohio, USA
Other name(s) Lois Jean Albright

Lola Albright (born July 20, 1925 in Akron, Ohio) is an American singer and actress.

Albright worked as a model before heading to Hollywood where she made her motion picture debut with a bit part in 1948's The Pirate following which she had a secondary but important role in the acclaimed 1949 hit film, Champion.

However, this was the era of many blondes, notably Marilyn Monroe, and for the next ten years Albright continued to work primarily in secondary roles in more than twenty films, including several 'B' Westerns. She acted in guest roles on a number of television series as well.

In 1958, Albright earned the role of Edie Hart in the trend-setting Peter Gunn television series produced by Blake Edwards and directed by Robert Altman with theme music that made Henry Mancini famous. In it, she played a nightclub singer who was the romantic interest of the "super-cool" private detective Gunn played by Craig Stevens. In 1959, she was nominated for an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actress (Continuing Character) in a Dramatic Series. Her role called for singing, something she had been doing since childhood, and her celebrity led to the release of her 1959 music album Dreamsville, in which her songs were backed by Mancini and his orchestra.

Albright's popularity as a result of the "Peter Gunn" series led to a number of major film roles including Elvis Presley's 1962 film, Kid Galahad, with Alain Delon and Jane Fonda in the 1964 French film Les Felins by renowned director René Clément, and the epic western The Way West. She also starred in the 1968 film version of The Impossible Years with David Niven and Christina Ferrare.

In the mid-1960s, Albright temporarily replaced Dorothy Malone as Constance Mackenzie on the hit primetime soap opera Peyton Place when Malone unexpectedly underwent emergency life-saving surgery. She continued to perform both in film and as a guest actor on a number of television series until her retirement in the early 1980s.

Sally Ann Howes
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born July 20, 1930 (1930-07-20) (age 77)
London, England, United Kingdom
Years active 1943-2000
Spouse(s) Maxwell Koker (1950-1953)
Richard Adler (1958-1966)
Douglas Rae (1972-pres)

Sally Ann Howes (born July 20, 1930) is a singer and actress holding a dual citizenship; born in London, England, she became a naturalized United States citizen. Her career on stage, screen and television has spanned over six decades. She is best remembered for the role of Truly Scrumptious in the 1968 musical film, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.




Childhood film career

Born in St. Johns Wood, London and later moving to the family's country house in Essendon, Hertfordshire for the duration of World War II, Sally Ann Howes was a show-business baby who lived a quiet, orderly childhood where she grew up with a nanny and was surrounded by a variety of pets and her parents' theatrical peers, including actor/writer Jack Hulbert and his wife, actress Cicely Courtneidge, who had an adjoining house. Her first taste of the stage was school productions, but as she came from a theatrical family, it was inevitable that another family friend, an agent who was visiting the Howes family for dinner, became impressed with her and not long after suggested the young Sally Ann for a role in a movie. Two hundred young girls had already been screen tested without success, and the producers were desperate to find a talented little girl to play the lead, and they asked her father to please rush in some pictures on the recommendation of the agent. The movie, Thursday's Child, was written by playwright and screenwriter Rodney Ackland, also a close neighbor to the Howes family, and it would become Ackland's directorial debut.


Thursday's Child (1943) launched her career. A second film, The Halfway House (1944), led to her being put under contract by Michael Balcon of Ealing Studios, and this was followed by many other film roles as a child actress including Dead of Night (1945) with Sir Michael Redgrave, Pink String and Sealing Wax (1946), Nicholas Nickleby (1947), My Sister and I (1948), Anna Karenina (1948), opposite Vivien Leigh.

At age 18 she was given a new, seven-year contract, this time by J. Arthur Rank, and she went on to make the films, Stop Press Girl (1949), The History of Mr. Polly (1949) opposite John Mills, Fools Rush In (1949), and Due mogli sono troppe (1950) aka Honeymoon Deferred (UK).





Musical theatre on the West End and Broadway

Howes had begun taking singing lessons on the recommendation of a visiting teacher friend not only to bring out her natural talents but also in effort to lower her speaking voice which was quite high-pitched. While still in her teens, she made her first musical-comedy stage appearance in Fancy Free. In late 1950 starred in a BBC TV version of Cinderella.

In 1950 she accepted her first professional stage role in the Sandy Wilson musical, Caprice, forcing her to terminate her contract with Rank, with whom she'd been unhappy with the film roles and being on "loan out." She was finding gainful employment in television and radio, and she was looking to flex her singing talent, something that both Balcon and Rank had overlooked. Caprice was followed by Bet Your Life opposite Julie Wilson, Arthur Askey and Brian Reece. She was also simultaneously on the radio with Askey and Reece. In 1953 she starred on the West End in Paint Your Wagon with her father, Bobby Howes. The show ran for 18 months. It was followed by Summer Song, also on the West End, and she had firmly established herself as a leading musical comedy star. This was followed by her critically acclaimed performance in the stage drama, A Hatful of Rain. In the early to mid-1950s, she also mixed her theater with television appearances and even modeling, commercials and product endorsements.

She became a popular celebrity in England, even appearing as a comic-strip character in "TV Fun" serial comics and annuals, as a young, wholesome teacher in the wild American west at a time when Western TV shows were very popular. She appeared on the cover of many magazines, most notably Life (3 March 1958), when she came to the United States to take over My Fair Lady on Broadway.

In late 1957 she was offered the part (for the third time) of taking over for Julie Andrews in My Fair Lady on Broadway so that Julie could join the cast in London. She turned it down twice previously. The first offer had been to join the USA touring company of the musical, and the second time she declined the part was due to her film commitment for Admirable Crichton (1957). With the persistence of Lerner and Loewe, however, she accepted the third time, for a year's contract, but at a higher salary than Julie. She became an instant hit as a very fiery Eliza Doolittle.

Just prior to taking over My Fair Lady, Howes married Tony-winning composer Richard Adler (The Pajama Game, Damn Yankees) in January 1958. In December 1958 she appeared on Television in Adler's musical adaptation (which was written for her) of O'Henry's short story, The Gift of the Magi.

She simultaneously appeared on many TV shows including Perry Como, Dinah Shore, Jack Paar, The Tonight Show, plus appearing in The Bell Telephone Hour, The Kraft Music Hall, The United States Steel Hour. She appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show four times.

With her one-year contract in My Fair Lady over, she returned to England to tape six one-hour variety shows entitled The Sally Ann Howes Show for the British commercial television network. She was also personally requested to sing for three US Presidents (Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson). She became a frequent guest panelist on game shows and was known for her quick, spontaneous answers.

She returned to Broadway in 1961 in the short run of Kwamina, another Adler musical which was written for her. She starred opposite Terry Carter, Brock Peters, and Robert Guillaume. The musical centered on an interracial love story and was too controversial in a time when civil rights were hotly contested. The show has not had a Broadway revival since. Coincidentally, her father, Bobby Howes, was also on Broadway that year with a short revival of Finian's Rainbow, and a cast album exists of that show as well.

In 1962 she starred in a short revival of the musical Brigadoon at the New York City Opera and received a Tony nomination, the first performer to be nominated for a revival performance. She recreated the role in a private White House performance at the express invitation of President and Mrs. Kennedy. In 1964 she starred on Broadway opposite Robert Alda and Steve Lawrence in the energetic What Makes Sammy Run?, which lasted for over 500 performances.

She returned to familiar territory on TV in 1966 with Brigadoon opposite Robert Goulet, Peter Falk and some of her Broadway cast, and it garnered six Emmy awards.


Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

In 1967 she began the long film shoot for what would become a celebrated children's classic, and a role for which she would achieve new and everlasting fame, that of Truly Scrumptious, the beautiful, aristocratic daughter of a candy magnate in the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968). Despite all her work before and after the film, it is the one role she is consistently identified with and loved for.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang did not, however, restart her film career or launch a career for her in episodic television despite several guest-starring roles in Mission Impossible, Marcus Welby, M.D., and Branigan and The Men From Shiloh. Even the pilot Prudence and the Chief which was a spoof on The King and I, did not get picked up as a TV series. In addition, musicals were now failing at the box office and that venue was closed to her. As a result, she returned almost exclusively to the musical stage, appearing in only a few more films/TV productions.


Later theatrical career

In the 1970s she toured Britain with The King and I and later the USA with The Sound of Music. After her debut with the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera in 1972 with The Sound of Music she returned to England to star in the stage drama, Lover, which was written specifically for her.

In the 1970s and 1980s, she began to cross over from standard musicals to operettas. She performed two summers with the Kenley Players in Blossom Time and The Great Waltz, and she later added Franz Lehár's The Merry Widow and then two seasons of Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music at the New York City Opera. She also added the role of Gertrude from Hamlet to her repertoire.

In 1990 she debuted her one-woman show, From This Moment On at the Edinburgh Festival and at a benefit for the Long Island AIDS Association at the John Drew Theatre in Easthampton, New York.

Her last film was the 1992 miniseries Judith Krantz's Secrets. That marked her 50th year in film.

Recent projects include her narrations of Cubby Broccoli, The Man Behind Bond on the 2000 year release of the DVD Diamonds Are Forever, The Making of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang The Musical (2002), and her appearance in the documentary, After They Were Famous - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (2004).


Personal

Except for occasional lectures, charity functions and some Broadway openings, she is mostly retired (as of 2005), although she still hosts events or performs two or three times per year. She is currently an Artistic Advisor for the Palm Beach Theater Guild, a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the Royal Poinciana Playhouse in Palm Beach, Florida.


Family

Sally Ann Howes was born to British comedian/actor/singer/variety star Bobby Howes (1895 - 1972) and actress/singer Patricia Malone (1899 - 1971). She is the granddaughter of Capt. J.A.E. Malone (died 1928), London theatrical director of musicals, and she has an older brother, Peter Howes, a retired professional musician and music professor. Her great-grandfather, Joseph Malone, was awarded the Victoria Cross in 1854 during the Crimean War. Her uncle, Pat Malone, was an actor on stage, films, and television.

Howes adopted Richard Adler's two sons, Andrew and Christopher (died 1984) after the death of his first wife (1964).

She has been married to Douglas Rae since the early 1970s.

Diana Rigg
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Birth name Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg
Born July 20, 1938 (1938-07-20)
Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England
Spouse(s) Archibald Stirling 1982-1990
Menachem Gueffen 1973-1976
Notable roles Emma Peel, The Avengers
Tracy Bond in On Her Majesty's Secret Service
BAFTA Awards

Special award
2000 Women of The Avengers
Best Actress (TV)
1990 Mother Love
Emmy Awards

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie
1997 Rebecca
Tony Awards

Best Actress in a Play
1994 Medea

Dame Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg DBE (born 20 July 1938) is an English actress. She is probably best known for her portrayals of Emma Peel in The Avengers and Tracy Bond in the 1969 James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service.





Early life

Rigg was born in the South Yorkshire town of Doncaster[1], to Louis Rigg and Beryl Helliwell; her father was a railway engineer who had been born in Yorkshire. She lived in India between the ages of two and eight[1] and then attended the Moravian school in Fulneck, near Pudsey. Rigg spent many years of her childhood in Bikaner, India, where her father was employed as a Railroad Executive. Rigg still speaks fluent Hindi.


Career

Rigg is particularly known for her role in the British 1960s television series The Avengers, where she played the sexy secret agent Emma Peel. Her career in film, television and the theatre has been wide-ranging, including roles in the Royal Shakespeare Company between 1959 and 1964. Her professional debut was in The Caucasian Chalk Circle in 1955, aged 17.

Rigg tried out for the role of Emma Peel on a whim, without ever having seen the programme. Although she was hugely successful in the role, she did not like the lack of privacy that television brought. She also did not like the way that she was treated by ABC Weekend TV; after a dozen episodes she discovered that she was being paid less than the cameraman.


For the second series she held out for a raise in pay (from GB£90 to GB£180 weekly), but there was still no question of her staying for a third year. Patrick Macnee, her co-star in the series, noted that Rigg had later told him that she considered Macnee and her driver to be her only friends on the set.[2] After leaving The Avengers she appeared as the title character in the telemovie The Marquise, which was based on a play by Noel Coward.

She also returned to the stage, including playing two Tom Stoppard leads, Ruth Carson in Night and Day and Dorothy Moore in Jumpers. A nude scene with Keith Michell in Abelard and Heloise led to a notorious description of her as 'built like a brick mausoleum with insufficient flying buttresses', by the crude and acerbic critic John Simon.

In 1982, she appeared in a musical called Colette, based on the life of the French writer and created by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt, but it closed during an American tour en route to Broadway. In 1986, she took a leading role in the West End production of Stephen Sondheim's musical Follies.

On the big screen she became a Bond girl in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), playing Tracy Bond, James Bond's only wife. Throughout the filming of the movie, there were rumors that the experience was not a happy one, due to a personality clash with Bond actor George Lazenby. The rumors come from a reporter witnessing her tell George she was eating garlic for lunch, before a love scene between the two. The rumors are false, however, as both Diana and George have denied the claims. Nevertheless, she received great reviews and is considered one of the best Bond girls. Her other films include The Assassination Bureau (1969), The Hospital (1971), Theatre of Blood (a Grand Guignol tongue-in-cheek movie in which she plays Vincent Price's daughter who helps him carry out his murderous plans against crude and acerbic critics, which are set to the grimmest scenes in Shakespearean literature) (1973), and A Little Night Music (1977). She also appeared as Lady Holiday in the 1981 film The Great Muppet Caper.

In the 1980s, after reading stinging reviews of a stage performance she had given, Rigg was inspired to compile the worst theatrical reviews she could find into a tongue-in-cheek (and best-selling) compilation, entitled No Turn Unstoned. In 1982 she received acclaim for her performance as Arlena Marshall in the film adaptation of Agatha Christie's Evil Under The Sun. In 1984, she appeared in a public television production of King Lear, starring Sir Laurence Olivier in the title role, as as Regan, the king's treacherous second daughter. In 1988, she played the Wicked Queen in the Cannon adaption of Snow White. In 1989, she played Helena Vesey in Mother Love for the BBC; her superb portrayal of an obsessive mother who was prepared to do anything, even murder, to keep control of her son won Diana the 1989 BAFTA for best actress.

In 1986, she presented the Scottish Television series Held in Trust, which focused on the work of the National Trust for Scotland and some of its most famous treasures.

In the 1990s, she had triumphs with roles at the Almeida Theatre in Islington, including Medea in 1993 (for which she received the Best Actress Tony Award), Mother Courage in 1995 and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in 1996. On television she has appeared as Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca and as the brilliant amateur detective Mrs. Bradley in The Mrs Bradley Mysteries.

In this series, first aired in 2000, she played Gladys Mitchell's detective, Dame Beatrice Adela Le Strange Bradley, an eccentric old woman who worked for Scotland Yard as a pathologist. The series was not a critical success and did not return for a second season.

From 1989 until 2003, she hosted the PBS television series Mystery!, taking over from Vincent Price, her co-star from Theatre of Blood. Her TV career in America has been varied; most famously she starred in her own series Diana, but it was not successful.

Rigg has continued to perform on stage in London, the latest play being a drama entitled Honour which had a limited but successful run in 2006.

Although she does not consider herself a singer, her performances in A Little Night Music, Follies and other stage musicals have been well received by audiences and critics alike. She made a highly memorable appearance with Morecambe and Wise in 1976, in which she played Nell Gwynne in a musical pastiche, joining Eric and Ernie to sing "How Could You Believe Me When I Said I Loved You When You Know I've Been A Liar All My Life?".

She also appeared in the second season of Ricky Gervais' hit comedy, Extras, alongside Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe.


Private life

She lived with Philip Saville for some time. She married Menachem Gueffen, an Israeli painter, which lasted from 1973 to 1976, and Archibald Stirling, a theatrical producer and former officer in the Scots Guards which lasted from 1982 to 1990. By Stirling she has a daughter, the actress Rachael Stirling, who was born in 1977.
Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1988 and a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1994.
Patrick Macnee, her co-star in The Avengers, described Diana Rigg in a July 2006 documentary on BBC Four as "just like an angel coming down from heaven."
Diana Rigg is a Patron of International Care & Relief and was for many years the public face of the charity's child sponsorship scheme.
Rigg is Chancellor of the University of Stirling.

Natalie Wood
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Birth name Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko
Born July 20, 1938
San Francisco, California
Died November 29, 1981 (aged 43)
Santa Catalina Island, California
Spouse(s) Robert Wagner (1957-1962, 1972-1981)
Richard Gregson (1969-1971)
Academy Awards

Nominated: Best Actress
1955 Rebel Without a Cause
1961 Splendor in the Grass
1963 Love with the Proper Stranger
BAFTA Awards

Nominated: Best Foreign Actress
1961 Splendor in the Grass
Golden Globe Awards

Most Promising Newcomer - Female (1957)
Best TV Actress - Drama
1979 From Here to Eternity

Natalie Wood (July 20, 1938 - November 29, 1981) was a three time Academy Award nominated American film actress.




Early life and acting career

Wood was born Natalya Nikolaevna Zakharenko in San Francisco, California, to Russian immigrants, Nikolai and Maria Zakharenko. Her parents changed their surname to "Gurdin", and by the age of 4 she was billed as Natasha Gurdin. Her mother tightly managed and controlled the young girl's career and personal life from her start in films at the age of five. She starred in multiple films as a child including both Miracle on 34th Street and The Ghost and Mrs Muir in 1947. Her father is described by Wood's biographers as a passive alcoholic who went along with his wife's demands. Her sister, Lana Wood, is also an actress, notably a Bond girl, and was featured in a Playboy pictorial (she was not, however, a Playmate).


At 16, Natalie won the role of Judy in Nicholas Ray's Rebel Without a Cause, co-starring James Dean, Sal Mineo, and Dennis Hopper, becoming one of the relatively few child stars to make the transition to adult stardom. By the time she was 28, she was already a three-time Oscar nominee, for Rebel Without a Cause, Splendor in the Grass and Love With the Proper Stranger.

Another of her widely noted films was the Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise musical West Side Story, in which she played Maria. Wood was initially signed to do her own singing, but in the end, she was dubbed by professional singer Marni Nixon, which is said to have disappointed her. Nonetheless, she enjoyed worldwide celebrity status, comparable to that of Elizabeth Taylor. As a restless on-screen companion of James Dean and an off-screen date of Elvis Presley, she was much admired and envied by the young girls of the day. She once stated about Elvis, "He can sing, but he can't do much else."


Relationships

Among the men Wood frequently dated were singer Elvis Presley and actors Raymond Burr, Dennis Hopper, Warren Beatty, Nick Adams, Tab Hunter, Michael Caine and Scott Marlowe.

According to Mary F. Pols, the teenaged Wood went on studio-arranged dates with actors. In 1956, one of these was Tab Hunter, seven years her senior, with whom she developed a genuine friendship. They would attend parties to promote the two films they co-starred in that year, The Burning Hills and The Girl He Left Behind. Wood biographer and Hollywood screenwriter, Gavin Lambert, also confirms that Wood had studio-arranged dates with homo- or bisexual actors, the first of which was with Nick Adams. Hunter in his autobiography elaborates on how a Hollywood studio's publicization of a sham romance between two actors each under contract to it was a strategy to stimulate public desire for seeing that studio's forthcoming films. The demographic segment he in particular appealed to was the newly influential teenage girl market segment, since he had swiftly established himself as a leading "heartthrob" for that demographic.

According to Lambert and his reviewer David Ehrenstein, Wood supported homosexual playwright Mart Crowley in a manner that made it possible for him to write his play, The Boys in the Band.

Concerning a possible relationship between Wood and homosexual actor Raymond Burr, 21 years her senior, Wood's biographer, Suzanne Finstad, cites Dennis Hopper as saying, "I just can't wrap my mind around that one. But you know, I saw them together. They were definitely a couple. Who knows what was going on there." However, no romantic relationship has ever been proven between Burr and Wood.

Gavin Lambert wrote that, contrary to popular belief, Wood's casting in Rebel Without a Cause did not lead to a romance with co-star James Dean: "Like many people, she was fascinated by his charm. He had this magnetic quality on the screen and in life... They got on very well, they liked each other a lot." However, most biographers claim that she slept with Hopper and director Nicholas Ray.[citation needed] Lambert added that both Dean and Ray helped renew her passion for acting after a diet of lackluster movies like Chicken Every Sunday, Dear Brat and Father Was a Fullback.

Wood's two marriages to actor Robert Wagner were publicized and stormy, but they were reconciled at the time of her death.


Drowning at Catalina Island

In 1981, at the age of forty-three, Wood drowned while their yacht The Splendor was anchored at Catalina Island. An investigation by Los Angeles coroner Thomas Noguchi resulted in an official verdict of accidental drowning, although speculation about the circumstances continues.

Wood was on board the yacht with Wagner and actor Christopher Walken. There were reports Wagner and Walken had a loud argument about Walken's behavior towards Natalie, and Wood apparently tried to either leave the yacht or to secure a dinghy that was banging against the hull when she accidentally slipped and fell overboard. A woman on shore said she heard cries for help from the water that night, along with voices replying "we're coming." Wagner, Walken, and the pilot of the Splendor said they heard nothing. Noguchi revealed that Wood was legally intoxicated when she died and there were marks and bruises on her body, which could have been received as a result of her fall. In Noguchi's memoir, Coroner, he stated that had Natalie not been intoxicated, she would likely have realized that her heavy down-filled coat and wool sweater were pulling her underwater, and would have removed them. Noguchi said he found Natalie's fingernails still embedded in the rubber boat's side.

At the time of her death Wood was filming Brainstorm and preparing to make her stage debut in a Los Angeles production of Anastasia, opposite Dame Wendy Hiller.

She is buried in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery. She was survived by her husband, Robert Wagner, and two daughters, Natasha Gregson Wagner (from her marriage to Richard Gregson), and Courtney Wagner, her daughter with Robert Wagner. Other survivors included her stepdaughter Katie Wagner (from Robert Wagner's previous marriage to Marion Marshall), her sister, Lana Wood, and her mother. Lana Wood later published a biography of Natalie.


Natalie: A Memoir by Her Sister by Lana Wood

Trivia

Height: 5'0"
When she was nine she had an accident on a movie set which left a slight but permanent bone protrusion on her left wrist. For the rest of her life, on camera or in public, she wore a bracelet to cover it.
Wood is reported to have had a lifelong fear of dark water and drowning. During the filming of This Property Is Condemned, she was so scared of performing a skinny-dipping scene that co-star Robert Redford held her feet underwater to help steady her while shooting it.
She is one of several child actors to have been nominated for an acting-related Oscar in adulthood. Other examples are Elizabeth Taylor (who won two Oscars in adulthood), Jodie Foster (also won twice in adulthood), Jennifer Connelly (won once), Judy Garland, Natalie Portman, Dean Stockwell, Mickey Rooney, Joaquin Phoenix, Mary Pickford, Jackie Earl Haley and a few others.
Wood spoke Russian.
She and Robert Wagner were close friends of Joan Collins.

Kim Carnes
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Background information

Birth name Kimberly Carnes
Also known as Kim Ellingson
Born July 20, 1945 (1945-07-20)
Origin Pasadena, California, United States
Genre(s) Rock
Pop
Occupation(s) singer, songwriter
Instrument(s) Vocals
Piano
Keyboards
Guitar
Accordion
Harmonica
Years active 1967 - Present
Label(s) A&M
Capitol
EMI
MCA
Associated
acts Kim & Dave, New Christy Minstrels, Kenny Rogers, Michael McDonald, Steve Cropper, Barbra Streisand, Smokey Robinson
Website KimCarnes.com
Notable instrument(s)
Acoustic Guitar
Arp
Baldwin Piano
Banjo

Kim Carnes (born July 20, 1945 in Pasadena, California) is a Grammy Award-winning American singer-songwriter. She is noted for her distinctive, raspy voice which she attributes to many hours spent singing in smoky bars and clubs.





Early Career

Carnes was a member of New Christy Minstrels in 1967. (Kenny Rogers was also a member.) During this time, Carnes met and married Dave Ellingson with whom she would write most of her songs. For a short while in the early 1970s, she and Ellingson formed the unsuccessful folk duo Kim and Dave. Their song, "Nobody Knows," was the song played during the credits for the movie Vanishing Point.

She began releasing albums during the early 1970s. Her self-titled album in 1975 contained her first charted hit, "You're A Part Of Me" (No. 32 AC). This album was followed in 1976 with Sailin'. One track, "Love Comes From Unexpected Places," won best song at the 1977 American Song Festival and gained some additional notice after it was recorded by Barbra Streisand on her 1977 album Streisand Superman. Carnes' Top 40 breakthrough occurred in 1978 when she was recruited by Gene Cotton to record a duet version of "You're A Part Of Me" which reached No. 36 on the Billboard Hot 100.

In 1980, her duet with Kenny Rogers, "Don't Fall In Love With A Dreamer," became a major hit on the Pop (No. 4), Country (No. 3) and AC (No. 2) charts. The song was culled from Rogers' concept album, "Gideon," which was written entirely by Carnes and Ellingson. Later that year, her cover version of the Smokey Robinson & The Miracles song "More Love" became her first solo Top 10 hit single (No. 10 Pop, No. 6 AC).


Bette Davis Eyes

In 1981, she recorded the Jackie DeShannon and Donna Weiss song "Bette Davis Eyes". As the first single released from the album Mistaken Identity, it spent nine weeks at number one on the US singles charts and became a worldwide hit. The song's success propelled the album to No. 1 for four weeks. The single became the No. 1 song of 1981 and is second only to Olivia Newton-John's "Physical" as the biggest hit of the 1980's. The song earned both the Record of the Year and Song of the Year awards at the 1982 Grammys and Carnes was nominated for Best Pop Female.

Ironically, "Bette Davis Eyes", written in 1974, was originally rejected by Carnes. It was only after a new instrumental arrangement was done by Bill Cuomo that Carnes agreed to record the song and it became a huge hit. Bette Davis admitted to being a fan of the song and approached Carnes and the songwriters to thank them. Davis wrote to Carnes after the song was released and stated that she was very pleased with the song as it made her seem very up-to-date with her grandson. She had Carnes sing the song live for her at a tribute held just before her death. The song was also used in a 1982 advertising campaign for 7-Up, with the lyrics slightly altered and Pac-Man characters starring in the commercial spots.


Later career

Carnes released several albums after "Mistaken Identity," but she was never able to approach the success of "Bette Davis Eyes." She never charted higher than No. 15 on the Hot 100 which she achieved twice with "Crazy In The Night (Barking At Airplanes)" and "What About Me?" with Kenny Rogers and James Ingram. Carnes did reach the AC Top 10 three times after "Bette Davis Eyes" with "I Pretend" (No. 9), "What About Me?" (No. 1) and "Make No Mistake, He's Mine" with Barbra Streisand (No. 8).

Carnes remained a highly respected artist and songwriter. As a songwriter, she has had two No. 1 country singles. Her duet with Barbra Streisand was re-recorded as "Make No Mistake, She's Mine" by Ronnie Milsap and Kenny Rogers which was a No. 1 Country and No. 42 AC hit in 1987. Carnes also wrote "The Heart Won't Lie", a No. 1 duet for Reba McEntire and Vince Gill in 1993. Co-writing with others, Carnes has had songs covered by such country stars as Deana Carter, Kevin Sharp, Sawyer Brown, Suzy Bogguss, Pam Tillis, Tim McGraw and Tanya Tucker.

Carnes was nominated for two more Grammys - Best Pop Female for "Voyeur" and Best Rock Female for "Invisible Hands." In 1983, Kim's song, "I'll Be Here Where The Heart Is," was included on the Flashdance soundtrack which received a Grammy for Best Album Of Original Score Written for a Motion Picture. Carnes was one of the singers invited to perform on USA for Africa's 1985 famine relief fundraising single We Are the World and can be heard singing the last line of the song's bridge with Huey Lewis and Cyndi Lauper.

In 2004, she re-appeared with a self-released album Chasin' Wild Trains. She currently resides in Nashville, Tennessee with husband Dave Ellingson. She has 2 sons, Collin and Ry. Her son Ry is named after musician Ry Cooder, who guests on the song "Rough Edges" from her Barking At Airplanes album. Son Collin is also featured on that album at the beginning of the song "Crazy in the Night"


Trivia

At one point, Carnes placed three songs on Billboard's Hot 100 simultaneously. In January 1985, she charted solo with "Invitation To Dance," as a duo with Barbra Streisand on "Make No Mistake, He's Mine" and as a trio with Kenny Rogers and James Ingram on "What About Me?"
Singer/songwriter Tori Amos refers to Carnes in her song "Glory of the 80s", in the following lyric: "In the glories of the eighties, I may not have to die; I'll clone myself like that blonde chick that sings "Bette Davis Eyes."

Every man wants a wife who is beautiful, understanding,
economical, a good cook, and great in bed. But the law allows
only one wife.

Marriages are made in heaven. But, again, so are thunder,
lightning, tornados and hail.

One woman's hobby is usually another woman's hubby.

The easiest way to make your old car run better is to
check the prices of a new car.

It's what people don't know about each other that makes
them such good friends.

If you can't get a lawyer who knows the law, best get one
who knows the judge.

A man owes his success to his first wife and his second
wife to his success.

I like the one that observes, " It's what people don't know about each other that makes them good friends."

From Kim....

Artist: Kim Carnes
Song: He makes the sun rise (orpheus)

He goes to the mountain top everyday
She goes there to hear him play
He plays good he makes sweet
He just makes me crazy

Oh he makes the sun rise
Oh he makes the sun rise
Oh he makes the sun rise
He make he make the sun rise

Only he can make her dance
When he holds her in his hands
He make love he makes so sweet
He just makes her crazy

Oh he makes the sun rise
Oh he makes the sun rise
Oh he makes the sun rise
He make he make the sun rise
He make he make the sun rise

Life is just illusioning
Dance the part and catch the ring
She knew him in a time before
A thousand years from here and now

Golden boy with your guitar
I have loved you from afar
You play good you play so sweet
You just make me crazy

Oh he makes the sun rise
Oh he makes the sun rise
Oh he makes the sun rise
He make he make the sun rise
He make he make the sun rise

Good afternoon all.

I like this Kim Carnes song - so did Bette Davis.

Her hair is Harlow gold,
Her lips sweet surprise
Her hands are never cold
She's got Bette Davis eyes
She'll turn her music on
You won't have to think twice
pure as New York snow

She got Bette Davis eyes
And she'll tease you
She'll unease you
All the better just to please you
She's precocious
And she knows just what it
Takes to make a pro blush
She got Greta Garbo Stand off sighs,

she's got Bette Davis eyes
She'll let you take her home
It whets her appetite
She'll lay you on her throne
She got Bette Davis eyes
She'll take a tumble on you
Roll you like you were dice
Until you come out blue
She's got Bette Davis eyes

She'll expose you
Off your feet with the crumbs she throws you
She's ferocious
And she knows just what it takes to make a pro blush

All the boys Think she's a spy,
she's got Bette Davis eyes



And today's celebs:
Theda Bara; Lola Albright; Sally Ann Howes; Diana Rigg; Natalie Wood and Kim Carnes

Well, folks, there's our Raggedy back with her wonderful photo's in spite of her tooth and eerie canal.

Thanks, PA. and I like Bette Davis Eyes as well. Would you look at those Theda Bara eyes?

You know, everyone, I think the last movie that Natalie made was partially filmed in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

Well, let's do one from West Side Story.

MARIA:
I feel pretty,
Oh, so pretty,
I feel pretty and witty and bright,
And I pity
Any girl who isn't me tonight.
I feel charming,
Oh, so charming -
It's alarming how charming I feel,
And so pretty
That I hardly can believe I'm real.

See the pretty girl in that mirror there:
Who can that attractive girl be?
Such a pretty face,
Such pretty dress,
Such a pretty smile.
Such a pretty me!

I feel stunning
And entrancing.
Feel like running and dancing for joy.
For I'm loved
By a pretty wonderful boy!

Bernstein's modern version of Romeo and Juliet, of course

Laura Nyro
And When I Die

And when I die and when I'm dead, dead and gone,
there'll be one child born and a world to carry on, to carry on.
I'm not scared of dying and I don't really care.
If it's peace you find in dying, well, then let the time be near.
If it's peace you find in dying, when dying time is here,
just bundle up my coffin cause it's cold way down there,
I hear that's it's cold way down there, yeah, crazy cold way down there.
And when I die and when I'm gone,
there'll be one child born and a world to carry on, to carry on.
My troubles are many, they're as deep as a well.
I can swear there ain't no heaven but I pray there ain't no hell.
Swear there ain't no heaven and pray there ain't no hell,
but I'll never know by living, only my dying will tell,
only my dying will tell, yeah, only my dying will tell.
And when I die and when I'm gone,
there'll be one child born and a world to carry on, to carry on.
Give me my freedom for as long as I be. All I ask of living is to have no chains on me.
All I ask of living is to have no chains on me,
and all I ask of dying is to go naturally, only want to go naturally.
Don't want to go by the devil, don't want to go by the demon,
don't want to go by Satan, don't want to die uneasy, just let me go naturally.
And when I die and when I'm gone, there'll be one child born, there'll be one child born.
When I die, there'll be one child born. When I die, there'll be one child born.
When I die, there'll be one child born. When I die, there'll be one child born.

Well, folks. Gonna attempt to do it all over again.(nope, not deja vu)

Been having a wee bit of trouble accessing our studios, listeners. and in checking through our transcripts have found some pages missing.

All seems well now, however.

edgar, I see your song as a cycle of life and death, and the one I know is by Blood, Sweat, and Tears with Adam Clayton Powell as lead vocalist.

Got caught in a downpour today. Soaked my car and me. I could hardly see to drive home. Believe me when I say that there are mirages/fata morgana, on a rain slick road that is black top, and I thought about hydro-planing because the water on A1A was deep in spots. Now the sun is shining. That's the way of the weather in Florida.

Here's one for Thor and Odin.

I tell you it's frightening
It's thunder and lightning
And you're in control
I thought my life was complete
But look what you've doin' to me
Oh! You're makin' me crazy
Thunder and Lightning
I tell you it's frightening
It's thunder and lightning
And you're in control
I don't know how to handle it
It's more than I would dare
I wouldn't try to run from it
It reaches me everywhere
I'm feelin' dizzy and weak
You make me forget how to speak
I can feel it happening
Thunder and Lightning
I tell you it's frightening
It's thunder and lightning
And you're in control
I don't know how to handle it
It's more than I would dare
I wouldn't try to run from it
It reaches me everywhere
Ooh! What a good thing I've got
Oh it's such a good thing I've got
I don't think I can stand it.

Coltrane Chi.

edgar, I see your song as a cycle of life and death, and the one I know is by Blood, Sweat, and Tears with Adam Clayton Powell as lead vocalist.

While they do an excellent job, I went with the original.

Well, edgar. Since you are an original, I will take thee at thy word.

News from the field of phychology.

The Allure of Old Flames
By Amy Palanjian

There's nothing like your first love, which is why more and more newly single people are looking to the Internet to rekindle a decades-old romance. "These couples grew up and formed their identities together," says Dr. Nancy Kalish, psychology professor and author of Lost & Found Lovers: Facts and Fantasies of Rekindled Romances. "They defined what love meant to each other, before dating became a game," she explains.

And while many of us might consider getting back together with a lost love, reaching out to someone who has been out of your life for years (and could well have a very full life of their own) can be tricky, unpredictable, and potentially heartbreaking.

My goodnight song with a fond memory, listeners.

My old flame
I can't even think of his name
But it's funny now and then
How my thoughts go flashing back again
To my old flame

My old flame
My new lovers all seem so tame
For I haven't met a gent
So magnificent or elegant
As my old flame

I've met so many who had fascinating ways
A fascinating gaze in their eyes
Some who took me up to the skies
But their attempts at love
Were only imitations of

My old flame
I can't even think of his name
But I'll never be the same
Until I discover what became
Of my old flame

Goodnight, my friends

From Letty with love

Laura Nyro
Wedding Bell Blues

Bill, I love you so, I always will. I look at you and you see the passion eyes of May.
Oh, but am I ever gonna see my wedding day? (Wedding day)
Oh, I was on your side, Bill, when you were losing.
I'd never scheme or lie, Bill, there's been no fooling.
But kisses and love won't carry me till you marry me, Bill.
I love you so, I always will, and in your voice I hear a choir of carousels.
Oh, but am I ever gonna hear my wedding bells? (Wedding bells)
I was the one came running when you were lonely. I haven't lived one day not loving you only.
But kisses and love won't carry me till you marry me, Bill, I love you so, I always will.
And though devotion rules my heart, I take no bows,
Oh but, Bill, you’re never gonna take my wedding vows. (Wedding vows)
Come on, Bill (come on, Bill) so come on, Bill (come on, Bill).
Come on and marry me, Bill, I love you so, I always will.
Come on, I got the wedding blues, yeah, the wedding bell blues.
Come on and marry me, Bill, I love you so, I always will. I wanna marry you, Bill…

Good morning, WA2K listeners and contributors.

edgar, I am totally amazed with Laura Nyro's background. She was one talented and accomplished lady. I most certainly do know her voice and the song that you played for us last evening.

I did a quick check on her background, and felt sad that she died at the same age and of the same ovarian cancer as her mother.

Here's one, folks, that I also like by Laura.

Let's go Down by the grapevine
Drink my daddy's wine, good mornin'
Down by the grapevine
Drink my daddy's wine, good mornin
Mornin', oh sweet blindness
A little magic, a little kindness
Oh sweet blindness all over me
Please don't tell my mother
I'm a saloon and a moonshine lover
Come on baby do a slow float
You're a good lookin' riverboat
And ain't that sweet eyed blindness good to me

(Don't ask me cause I)
Ain't gonna tell you what I've been drinkin'
Ain't gonna tell you what I've been drinkin'
Ain't gonna tell you what I've been drinkin'
Wine, of wonder, wonder (by the way)
Sweet blindness, a little magic
A little kindness oh sweet blindness all over me
Don't let daddy hear it
He don't believe in the gin mill spirit
Come on baby do a slow float
You're a good lookin' riverboat
And ain't that sweet eyed blindness good to me, good to me
And ain't that sweet eyed blindness good to me

The lyrics by Fifth Dimension are a little different, but they are Laura's.

Kay Starr
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Background information

Birth name Katherine Laverne Starks
Born July 21, 1922 (1922-07-21) (age 84), Dougherty, Oklahoma, United States
Genre(s) Traditional Pop
Years active 1939-1950s
Label(s) Capitol, RCA Victor
Website KayStarr.net

Kay Starr (born July 21, 1922) is an American jazz and popular singer.





Life and career

She was born Katherine Laverne Starks on a reservation in Dougherty, Oklahoma. Her father, Harry, was a full-blooded Iroquois Indian; her mother, Annie, was of mixed Irish and American Indian heritage. When her father got a job installing water sprinkler systems, the family moved to Dallas, Texas. While her father worked for the Automatic Sprinkler Company, her mother raised chickens, and Kay used to sing to the chickens in the coop. As a result of the fact that her aunt, Nora, was impressed by her singing, she began to sing at the age of seven on a Dallas radio station, WRR, first in a talent competition where she finished third one week and won every week thereafter, then with her own weekly fifteen minute show. She sang pop and "hillbilly" songs with a piano accompaniment. By the age of ten, she was making $3 a night, a lot of money in the Depression days.

As a result of her father's changing jobs, her family moved to Memphis, Tennessee, and she continued performing on the radio, singing "Western swing music," still mostly a mix of country and pop. It was while she was on the Memphis radio station WMPS that, as a result of misspellings in her fan mail, she and her parents decided to give her the name "Kay Starr".

Aged 15, she was chosen to sing with the Joe Venuti orchestra. Venuti had a contract to play in the Peabody Hotel in Memphis which called for his band to feature a girl singer, which he did not have. Venuti's road manager heard her on the radio and suggested her to Venuti. Because she was still in junior high school, her parents insisted that Venuti take her home no later than midnight.

Although she had brief stints in 1939 with Bob Crosby and Glenn Miller (who hired her in July of that year when his regular singer, Marion Hutton, was sick), she spent most of her next few years with Venuti, until he dissolved his band in 1942. It was, however, with Miller that she cut her first record: "Baby Me"/"Love with a Capital You." It was not a great success, in part because the band played in a key more appropriate for Marion Hutton, which was less suited for Kay's vocal range.

After finishing high school, she moved to Los Angeles and signed with Wingy Manone's band; then from 1943 to 1945 she sang with Charlie Barnet's band. She then retired for a year because she developed pneumonia and later developed nodes on her vocal cords, and lost her voice as a result of fatigue and overwork.

In 1946 she became a soloist, and in 1947 signed a solo contract with Capitol Records. Capitol had a number of other female singers signed up (such as Peggy Lee, Ella Mae Morse, Jo Stafford, and Margaret Whiting), so it was hard to find her a niche. In 1948 when the American Federation of Musicians was threatening a strike, Capitol wanted to have all its singers record a lot of songs for future release. Since she was junior to all these other artists, every song she wanted to sing got offered to all the others, leaving her a list of old songs from earlier in the century, which nobody else wanted to record.

Around 1950 Starr made a trip back home to Dougherty and heard a fiddle recording of Pee Wee King's song, Bonaparte's Retreat. She liked it so much that she wanted to record it, and contacted Roy Acuff's publishing house in Nashville, Tennessee, and spoke to Acuff directly. He was happy to let her record it, but it took a while for her to make clear that she was a singer, not a fiddler, and therefore needed to have some lyrics written. Eventually Acuff came up with a new lyric, and Bonaparte's Retreat became her biggest hit up to that point, with close to a million sales.

In 1955, she signed with RCA Victor Records. However, at this time, traditional pop music was being superseded by rock and roll, and Kay had only one hit, which is sometimes considered her attempt to sing rock and roll and sometimes as a song making fun of it, "The Rock and Roll Waltz." She stayed at RCA Victor until 1959, then returned to Capitol.

Most of her songs have jazz influences, and, like Frankie Laine and Johnnie Ray, are sung in a style that sound decidedly close to the rock and roll songs that follow. These include her smash hits Wheel of Fortune (her biggest hit, number one for 10 weeks), Side by Side, The Man Upstairs, and Rock and Roll Waltz. One of her biggest hits was her cover version of The Man with the Bag, a Christmas song, which can be heard non-stop every holiday season in stores, restaurants, and on the radio. Her career declined in the late 1950s but she continued to work.

In 2006 a remix by Stuhr of Starr's vocal of the classic "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm" was used in a commercial for Telus.

As of 2007 she resides in Bel Air, California; married six times she has a daughter and a grandchild.