Happy Birthday, Ian Stephen McCulloch May 5th,1959
“I only ever wanted, from the age of 13, to be the greatest singer of the best band in the world.”
It’s the birthday of the “First Lady of Song,” Ella Fitzgerald, born in Newport News, Virginia in 1917. She loved to sing and dance as a child and when she was 16 she entered a contest at the Apollo Theater. She had a dance routine worked out and walked on stage wearing ragged clothes and men’s boots, but she froze up. Later she said, “I got out there and I saw all the people and I just lost my nerve. And the man said, ‘well, you’re out here, do something!’ So I tried to sing.” She won the contest and soon became a celebrity across all of New York. She joined Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington as the only performers who could draw audiences at the Apollo from south of 125th Street.
Ella Fitzgerald said, “The only thing better than singing is more singing.”
It’s the birthday of Ella Fitzgerald | The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor
“…She was eleven year old Frances Gumm, a frail child with a backstage pallor and enormous brown eyes. She was wearing a dress that was two inches too long, and the black grosgrain-ribbon bows with which her tap shoes were tied were wilted and worn.”
Happy Birthday, Francis Albert Sinatra (December 12th, 1915 -May 14th, 1998)
“The big lesson in life, baby, is never be scared of anyone or anything.”
FRED ASTAIRE TRIVIA: Fred playing his last stage production, ‘Gay Divorce,’ 1932. Fred plays Guy Holden (sans his sister, Adele Astaire), writer of cheap, “bodice ripper” romance novels when he meets and falls in love with Mimi (Clare Luce).
