FROM OPERA TO SWING

This week’s Greg Poppleton Phantom Dancer feature artist is Frances Langford. She trained as an opera singer. Then a tonsillectomy changed her soprano to contralto, so she changed musical styles from opera to swing.

Check out this week’s Phantom Dancer play list of swing and jazz mixed from live 1920s-60s radio below.

ONLINE

This week’s Phantom Dancer will be online right after the 23 July 107.3 2SER Sydney live mix at 2ser.com.
Hear the show live every Tuesday 12:04-2pm on 107.3 2SER Sydney

FRANCES ON RADIO

Frances Langford was discovered in 1930 singing at a local dance by a merchant who put her on local radio to sing about his wares.

The next year she did a brief stint in the Broadway musical ‘Here Goes the Bride’. She then went to Hollywood to start a movie career, appearing on Louella Parsons’ radio show ‘Hollywood Hotel’.

Rudy Vallee heard her singing on the show and invited her to become a regular on his radio show. From 1935 to 1938 she was also a regular performer on Dick Powell’s radio show. From 1946 to 1951, she performed with Don Ameche in the role, Blanche, on The Bickersons radio series.

FRANCES IN FILMS

She introduced what became her theme song, ‘I’m in the Mood for Love’, in the 1935 film ‘Every Night at Eight’, which you can see in the Video of the Week below.

She appeared frequently on the silver screen in such films as ‘Broadway Melody of 1936’ in which she sang ‘Broadway Rhythm’ and ‘You Are My Lucky Star’, ‘Born to Dance’ (1936), ‘Too Many Girls’ (1940) and ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’ (1942) with James Cagney, in which she sung ‘Over There’.

WWII

Langford was a regular singer on Bob Hope’s ‘Pepsodent Show’ when he and the cast held his first military entertainment program at March Field in Riverside, California in 1941. The show was so positive, he continued broadcasting from training bases around the USA and asked Langford to join him. During World War II, she joined Hope, Jerry Colonna, guitarist Tony Romano and other performers on USO tours entertaining thousands of GIs in Europe, North Africa and the South Pacific.

Her association with Hope continued up till 1989 when she joined him for a USO tour to entertain troops in the Persian Gulf.

During the war, Langford wrote the weekly ‘Purple Heart Diary’ column for Hearst Newspapers, in which she described her visits to military hospitals to entertain wounded soldiers. She used the weekly column as a means of allowing the recovering troops to voice their complaints, and to ask for public support to make sure that wounded troops received all the supplies and comforts they needed.

TV

Frances worked for several years in the late 1940s on ‘The Spike Jones Show’ and starred in a short-lived DuMont variety show ‘Star Time’ (1950).

She teamed with Don Ameche for the ABC television program, ‘The Frances Langford – Don Ameche Show’ (1951), a spin-off of their successful radio series ‘The Bickersons’ in which the duo played a feuding married couple.

Langford was also the host of the NBC musical variety program ‘Frances Langford Presents’ (1959), which lasted one season, as did her ‘The Frances Langford Show’ (1960). Another notable appearance was in ‘The Honeymooners’ lost episode ‘Christmas Party. which first aired December 19, 1953.

VIDEO

This week’s Phantom Dancer video of the week is from 1935 – Frances Langford singing the song that became her theme tune, ‘I’m In The Mood For Love’. Wasn’t George Raft a cad!

23 JULY PLAY LIST