Dinah Shore
Dinah Shore was an American singer, actress, television personality, author, and talk show host. Born in Winchester, Tennessee and raised in Nashville, Tennessee, She rose to prominence as a recording artist during the Big Band era. She achieved even greater success a decade later in television, mainly as the host of a series of variety programs sponsored by Chevrolet. After failing singing auditions for the bands of Benny Goodman, and both Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey, Shore struck out on her own. She became the first singer of her era to achieve huge solo success. She had a string of eighty charted popular hits, spanning from 1940 to 1957, and after appearing in a handful of feature films, she went on to a four-decade career in American television. She starred in her own music and variety shows from 1951 through 1963 and hosted two talk shows in the 1970s. TV Guide ranked her at number 16 on their list of the top 50 television stars of all time. Stylistically, Shore was compared to two singers who followed her in the mid-to-late 1940s and early 1950s, Jo Stafford and Patti Page.
Early life
Frances "Fanny" Rose Shore was born on February 29, 1916, to Russian-Jewish immigrant shopkeepers, Anna and Solomon Shore, in Winchester, Tennessee. She had an elder sister, eight years her senior, Elizabeth, known as "Bessie". When Fanny was eighteen months old, she was stricken with polio. The only known treatment was bed rest and sometimes more extreme care if the child was severely compromised. Her mother provided extensive care for her, which included regular therapeutic massage and a strict exercise program. She recovered, but sustained a deformed foot and limp. Fanny loved to sing as a small child; her mother, a contralto with operatic aspirations, encouraged her. Her father often took her to his store, where she would perform impromptu songs for the customers.In 1924, the Shore family moved to McMinnville, Tennessee, where her father had opened a department store. By her fifth-grade year, the family had moved to Nashville, where she completed elementary school. Although shy because of her limp, she became actively involved in sports, was a cheerleader at Nashville's Hume-Fogg High School, and was involved in other activities.
When Shore was 16, her mother died unexpectedly from a heart attack. Pursuing her education, Shore enrolled at Vanderbilt University, where she participated in many events and activities, including the Chi chapter of the Alpha Epsilon Phi sorority. She graduated from the university in 1938 with a degree in sociology. She visited the Grand Ole Opry and made her radio debut on Nashville's WSM radio station.
Shore decided to return to pursuing her career in singing, moving to New York City to audition for orchestras and radio stations. At first she went there on a summer break from Vanderbilt, and after graduation, for good. In many of her auditions, she sang the popular song "Dinah". When disc jockey Martin Block could not remember her name, he called her the "Dinah girl", and soon after the name stuck, becoming her stage name. She eventually was hired as a vocalist at radio station WNEW, where she sang with Frank Sinatra. She recorded and performed with the Xavier Cugat orchestra, and signed a recording contract with RCA Victor Records in 1940.
Music career
1940s
In March 1939, Shore debuted on national radio on the Sunday-afternoon CBS Radio program, Ben Bernie's Orchestra. In February 1940, she became a featured vocalist on the NBC Radio program The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street, a showcase for traditional Dixieland and blues songs. With her, the program became so popular, it was moved from 4:30 Sunday afternoon to a 9:00 Monday night time slot in September. In her primetime debut for "the music of the Three Bs, Barrelhouse, Boogie-woogie, and the Blues", she was introduced as "Mademoiselle Dinah 'Diva' Shore, who starts a fire by rubbing two notes together!" She recorded with the two Basin Street bands for RCA Victor; one of her records was the eponymous Dinah's Blues.Shore's singing came to the attention of Eddie Cantor. He signed her as a regular on his radio show, Time to Smile, in 1940. Shore credits him for teaching her self-confidence, comedic timing, and the ways of connecting with an audience. In 1943, Shore appeared in her first movie, Thank Your Lucky Stars, starring Cantor. In August 1944 she toured the European Theater of Operations hosted by Communications Zone commander Lt. Gen. John C. H. Lee.
File:Dinah Shore in Till the Clouds Roll By.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|right|Shore as Julia Sanderson in Till the Clouds Roll By She soon went to another radio show, Paul Whiteman Presents. During this time, the United States was involved in World War II, and Shore became a favorite with the troops. She had hits, including "Blues in the Night", "Jim", "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To", and "I'll Walk Alone", the first of her number-one hits. "Blues in the Night" sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA.
Shore continued appearing in radio shows throughout the 1940s, including The Bird's Eye Open House and Ford Radio Show. In early 1946, she moved to a new label, the CBS-owned Columbia Records. At Columbia, Shore enjoyed the greatest commercial success of her recording career, starting with her first Columbia single release, "Shoo-Fly Pie and Apple Pan Dowdy", and peaking with the most popular song of 1948, "Buttons and Bows",, which was number one for ten weeks, and her second million selling record. Other number-one hits at Columbia included "The Gypsy" and "The Anniversary Song". Shore soon became a successful singing star with her own radio show, Call for Music, which was broadcast on CBS from February 13, 1948, to April 16, 1948, and on NBC from April 20, 1948, to June 29, 1948.
One of her most popular recordings was the holiday perennial "Baby, It's Cold Outside" with Buddy Clark from 1949. The song was covered by many other artists, such as Ella Fitzgerald. Other hits during her four years at Columbia included "Laughing on the Outside ", "I Wish I Didn't Love You So", " For Sentimental Reasons", "Doin' What Comes Natur'lly", and "Dear Hearts and Gentle People". She was a regular with Jack Smith on his quarter-hour radio show on CBS from 1950 to 1951.
Shore was a musical guest in the films Thank Your Lucky Stars, Follow the Boys, and Till the Clouds Roll By and had starring roles in Danny Kaye's debut Up in Arms and Belle of the Yukon. She lent her musical voice to two Disney films: Make Mine Music and Fun and Fancy Free. Her last starring film role was for Paramount Pictures in Aaron Slick from Punkin Crick.
1950s
In 1950, Shore returned to RCA Victor with a deal to record 100 sides for $1 million. The hits kept coming, but with less frequency, and were not charting as high as in the 1940s. Shore's biggest hits of this era were "My Heart Cries for You" and "Sweet Violets", both peaking at number three in 1951. Several duets with Tony Martin did well, with "A Penny a Kiss" being the most popular, reaching number eight. was a 1953 hit, and her covers of "Changing Partners" and "If I Give My Heart to You" were popular top-20 hits. "Love and Marriage" and "Whatever Lola Wants" were top-20 hits from 1955."Chantez, Chantez" was her last top-20 hit, staying on the charts for over 20 weeks in 1957. Shore remained at RCA Victor until 1958, and during that time, released albums including Bouquet of Blues, Once in a While, and Vivacious, which were collections of singles with different orchestras and conductors such as Frank DeVol and Hugo Winterhalter. The studio albums Holding Hands at Midnight, from 1955, and Moments Like These, from 1958, recorded in stereo, with orchestra under the musical direction of Harry Zimmerman, who performed the same duties on The Dinah Shore Chevy Show, were the exceptions.
Recording career after the 1950s
In 1959, Shore left RCA Victor for Capitol Records. Although she recorded only one minor hit for her new label, the collaboration produced four "theme albums" that paired her with arranger Nelson Riddle, conductor and accompanist André Previn, and jazz's Red Norvo. Her final two Capitol albums were Dinah, Down Home and The Fabulous Hits .Shore was dropped by Capitol in 1962 and recorded only a handful of albums over the next two decades. She recorded Lower Basin Street Revisited for friend Frank Sinatra's Reprise label in 1965, Songs for Sometime Losers, Country Feelin, Once Upon A Summertime, and Dinah!, a double LP for Capitol in 1976. She recorded this album at the height of her talk show fame, and it featured her take on contemporary hits such as "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover", "The Hungry Years", and "Theme from Mahogany ". Her final studio album was released in 1979, Dinah!: I've Got a Song, for the Children's Television Workshop.
Acting career
Radio
Shore starred in seven radio series of her own between 1941 and 1954. She made hundreds of guest appearances in shows including an episode of Suspense.Early television career
Soon after Shore arrived in New York in 1937, aged 21, Shore made her first television appearances on experimental broadcasts for NBC over station W2XBS in New York. Twelve years later, in 1949, she made her commercial television debut on The Ed Wynn Show from Los Angeles over CBS and on Easter Sunday 1950, made a guest appearance on Bob Hope's first network television show on NBC. After guest spots on many television shows, she was given her own program, The Dinah Shore Show on NBC on November 27, 1951. Vic Schoen was her musical director from 1951 to 1954, and also arranged music for her on The Colgate Comedy Hour.In 1956, Shore began hosting a monthly series of one-hour, full-color spectaculars as part of NBC's The Chevy Show series. These proved so popular, the show was renamed The Dinah Shore Chevy Show the following season, with Shore becoming the full-time host, helming three of four weeks in the month. Broadcast live and in NBC's famous "Living Color", this variety show was one of the most popular of the 1950s and early 1960s and featured the television debuts of stars of the era, such as Yves Montand and Maureen O'Hara, and featured Shore in performances alongside Ella Fitzgerald, Mahalia Jackson, Peggy Lee, Frank Sinatra, and Pearl Bailey. Tennessee Ernie Ford was a featured guest on one show, and she introduced him, tongue-in-cheek, as "Tennessee Ernie CHEVROLET!!" She also appeared as a guest on The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom.
The Dinah Shore Chevy Show ran through the 1960–61 season, after which Chevrolet dropped sponsorship, and Shore hosted a series of monthly broadcasts sponsored by the American Dairy Association and Green Stamps. Simply called The Dinah Shore Show, Shore's guests included Nat "King" Cole, Bing Crosby, Jack Lemmon, Boris Karloff, Betty Hutton, Art Carney, and a young Barbra Streisand. Over twelve seasons, from 1951 to 1963, Shore made 125 hour-long programs and 444 fifteen-minute shows. She always ended her televised programs by throwing an enthusiastic kiss directly to the cameras and exclaiming "MWAH!" to the audience.
Shore also appeared in four specials for ABC in the 1964–65 season. They were sponsored by the Purex Corporation.