Most popular to theatre audiences from his title role in Andrew Lloyd Webber's version of The Phantom of the Opera, Michael Crawford was in fact a star of the British stage and screen for almost two decades before. Born in Wiltshire, England in 1942, he began singing in the school choir and while still a teenager, changed his name from... [+] Read More

Most popular to theatre audiences from his title role in Andrew Lloyd Webber's version of The Phantom of the Opera, Michael Crawford was in fact a star of the British stage and screen for almost two decades before. Born in Wiltshire, England in 1942, he began singing in the school choir and while still a teenager, changed his name from Dumble-Smith to the more charismatic Crawford and began working in radio, television and film. After first stepping on the London stage in the early '60s, Crawford's first regular television series was the BBC's 1960s show Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life; he appeared in several films as well (The War Lover, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and a starring turn in How I Won the War, which also featured John Lennon). Crawford moved to New York in 1967, and appeared in several small plays before Gene Kelly recruited him to star in the fim version of Hello, Dolly!, with Barbra Streisand. Other films proved less successful, and Crawford returned to England in the early '70s, winning an award for his role in the sitcom Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em.

Alternating between television series and award-winning roles in theatre during the '70s, Michael Crawford broke out with his title role in the musical Barnum, which earned him several awards and proved a smash hit. He toured with the show during the early '80s, and Barnum's popularity was the decisive factor in Andrew Lloyd Webber's casting of him opposite Sarah Brightman in The Phantom of the Opera in 1986. The musical earned him immense critical praise, a Tony Award, and a hit single, "The Music of the Night," which reached the British Top Ten. Signed to Atlantic that same year, Crawford released Songs from the Stage & Screen, recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra. After touring with The Phantom of the Opera across Great Britain, North America and Australia, Crawford recorded his second album With Love and set out on the road once more with a production of The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber, recorded as his third full-length release. A Touch of Music in the Night followed in 1993, and two years later Michael Crawford mounted EFX, a $40 million production set at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, featuring Crawford playing five different parts. In the spring of 1998, Michael Crawford released On Eagle's Wings, a collection of spiritual songs; Live in Concert followed later that same year, and in 1999 he released In the Moon of Wintertime: Christmas with Michael Crawford. ~ John Bush, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Actor/singer Mandy Patinkin carved out a varied career onstage, in films, in the recording studio, and on television. Though he was possessed of a flexible tenor voice with a wide range and was known for his bravura performing style, few of his movie appearances made use of his musical ability, and he was more widely known as a dramatic actor on... [+] Read More

Actor/singer Mandy Patinkin carved out a varied career onstage, in films, in the recording studio, and on television. Though he was possessed of a flexible tenor voice with a wide range and was known for his bravura performing style, few of his movie appearances made use of his musical ability, and he was more widely known as a dramatic actor on television than anything else. Nevertheless, he was one of the major American musical theater performers of his generation.

Patinkin first developed an interest in acting and singing while growing up in Chicago. He attended the University of Kansas, then the Juilliard School of Drama in New York City, leaving without a degree when he was able to find enough stage work to turn professional. During the second half of the 1970s, he was closely associated with the New York Shakespeare Festival at the Public Theater, performing in many of the celebrated theater company's productions, on and off Broadway. He made his film debut in 1978, playing a small part in The Big Fix.

Patinkin's first significant appearance in a musical came with the Public Theater's brief off-Broadway production of Leave It to Beaver Is Dead (March 29, 1979). He got his big break later the same year when he was cast as Che in the Broadway production of Evita (Sep 25, 1979), a role that won him the Tony Award; he was featured on the original Broadway cast album, which sold over a million copies.

In the late '70s and early '80s, Patinkin appeared in a series of non-singing parts in films, gradually gaining more prominent roles: Last Embrace (1979); French Postcards (1979); Night of the Juggler (1980); Ragtime (1981); Daniel (1983); and Yentl (1983). Then he made a triumphant return to the Broadway stage, starring in the musical Sunday in the Park with George (May 2, 1984). He was nominated for another Tony and appeared on the original Broadway cast album, which reached the charts. (In 1986, the show was videotaped and broadcast on the Showtime cable network, later earning release as a home video.) Further, his performance established him as an important interpreter of the music of Stephen Sondheim, Broadway's most respected songwriter, and he consolidated that status with his appearance in a concert version of Sondheim's 1971 musical Follies performed and recorded in September 1985; the album reached the charts in 1986.

Though Patinkin continued to appear in non-singing roles in the movies -- Maxie (1985), a particularly memorable performance in the romantic comedy The Princess Bride (1987), Alien Nation (1988), The House on Carroll Street (1988) -- his opportunities as a singer increased in the second half of the 1980s. He was contracted for a series of studio cast recordings of Broadway musicals by CBS Masterworks including South Pacific (1986), Man of La Mancha (1990), and Kismet (1991). This association led to his being signed as a recording artist by CBS, which released his debut album Mandy Patinkin, in 1989. He accompanied the release with his own one-man show, Mandy Patinkin in Concert: Dress Casual (July 25, 1989), which opened at the Public Theater and transferred for a limited run on Broadway. His second album, Dress Casual, was released the following year.

Patinkin got his first chance to sing onscreen with his appearance in Dick Tracy in 1990. Though the film had no formal soundtrack album, Madonna, one of its stars, issued an album of her songs from it, I'm Breathless, on which Patinkin was featured. Released in May 1990, the album went multi-platinum. This was a busy acting time for him, as he had parts in three films released in 1991, True Colors, The Doctor, and Impromptu (the last marking the movie directing debut of James Lapine, the librettist and director of Sunday in the Park with George).

Patinkin made occasional stage appearances during this period, but he returned to Broadway in a big way with the successful musical The Secret Garden (April 25, 1991), also appearing on the original Broadway cast album. After leaving the show, Patinkin stayed on Broadway by stepping in as a replacement cast member in the musical Falsettos. By this time, he had become a sufficiently prominent figure in the musical theater to attract not only praise, but also criticism. Fans adored his energetic, committed style, which reminded some of the days of Al Jolson and Ethel Merman. Detractors criticized him for the same tendencies, which they found exaggerated, and Forbidden Broadway, the long-running satiric musical revue, crystallized the charge of hamminess in its Patinkin parody, set to the tune of "Super-cali-fragil-istic-expi-ali-docious" from Mary Poppins, "Super-Frantic, Hyper-Active, Self-Indulgent Mandy" (found on Forbidden Broadway, Vol. 2, 1991).

Patinkin returned to films in Life With Mikey (1993), The Music of Chance (1993), and Squanto: A Warrior's Tale (1994), and switching to Nonesuch Records, he released his third album, Experiment, in May 1994. But his career entered a new phase when he agreed to a role on a new network television series, playing Dr. Jeffrey Geiger on the hospital drama Chicago Hope, which premiered September 18, 1994. The show was a hit, and Patinkin won an Emmy Award, but he left the program early in its second season largely due to family considerations; now married and having started a family, he was based in New York, while the show filmed in Los Angeles. (He returned to Chicago Hope on an occasional basis, however, even becoming a semi-regular during the 1999-2000 season, the show's last year on the air.)

Patinkin released his fourth album, Oscar & Steve, a tribute to Oscar Hammerstein II and Stephen Sondheim, in October 1995. His career was slowed by eye trouble in the mid-'90s, and in 1996 he underwent a corneal transplant, enduring a second one in 1998. Nevertheless, he managed to appear in several films, among them Men With Guns (1997), Lulu on the Bridge (1998), and Elmo in Grouchland (1999) (even getting to sing in the last). In February 1998, he released his fifth album, Mamaloshen, which found him singing traditional and other material in Yiddish. He returned to Broadway in the New York Shakespeare Festival's production of The Wild Party (Apr 13, 2000), which earned him another Tony nomination and an appearance on the original Broadway cast album, though the musical closed after two months.

Patinkin’s sixth album was a children’s collection, Kidults, released in September 2001. That December, he appeared in the film Piñero, playing the part of his old mentor Joseph Papp of the Public Theater. He put together a one-man stage show of Sondheim music, Celebrating Sondheim, which he toured with, resulting in the album Sings Sondheim, released in October 2002, and a run at the Henry Miller Theatre on Broadway in December 2002 and January 2003. Although he had continued to make guest appearances on television series during the early years of the 21st century, appearing on such shows as Touched by an Angel, Boston Public, and Law & Order, he finally took on a regular series assignment again with the supernatural Dead Like Me on the Showtime cable network in 2003. On September 22, 2005, he went back to network television with the premiere of the crime drama series Criminal Minds on CBS. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide [-] Hide

According to most critics and theater historians, Stephen Sondheim (b. 1930) stands among Broadway show composers and lyricists not only as the greatest of his generation but as the only great one of his generation. There may be many reasons why Broadway failed to produce consistently great writers to follow the Rodgers and Hammersteins... [+] Read More

According to most critics and theater historians, Stephen Sondheim (b. 1930) stands among Broadway show composers and lyricists not only as the greatest of his generation but as the only great one of his generation. There may be many reasons why Broadway failed to produce consistently great writers to follow the Rodgers and Hammersteins and Lerner and Loewes of the '40s and '50s, but the fact remains that, though he operates without serious competition, Sondheim clearly ranks with such masters, as well as with the Jerome Kerns and Irving Berlins of an even earlier generation.

Sondheim became a protege of Hammerstein's after befriending the lyricist's son in school, but he got his first big break when he was hired to write lyrics to Leonard Bernstein's score for West Side Story (1957), which turned out to be one of the biggest hits and most memorable works of its time. This led to a lot of lyric-writing work, though Sondheim always wanted to write music as well. Nevertheless, he worked with Jule Styne on Gypsy (1959), another enormous hit, and would later agree to do the same with Richard Rodgers for the unsuccessful Do I Hear a Waltz? (1965).

Before that, however, Sondheim scored his first success as composer and lyricist with A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962). It was his last hit until Company (1970), a show about contemporary life and mores that did much to revolutionize the Broadway musical and, as Hammerstein's 50's shows had, move it more toward serious and exotic subjects. Since that time, Sondheim's shows have been amazingly daring in terms of subject matter, with unusual musical ideas and stunningly original lyrics. But they have not always been big hits and have marked a time in theater when Broadway show music became a marginalized art form in terms of popular culture.

Nevertheless, Sondheim's shows of the '70s and '80s are benchmarks of the genre: Follies (1971) brought together aging follies girls for a look at middle-aged American life; A Little Night Music (1973) is based on Ingmar Bergman's film Smiles of a Summer Night and contains Sondheim's sole hit song, "Send in the Clowns"; Pacific Overtures (1976) ambitiously took on the subject of Japanese-American relations; Sweeney Todd (1979) was an operetta based on the British grand guignol tale of a murderous barber; Sunday in the Park with George (1984) was a biography of impressionist painter Georges Seurat; and Into the Woods (1987) wove together children's fairy tales with the theories of psychologist Bruno Bettelheim. In 1991, Sondheim wrote his first Off-Broadway musical, Assassins, a short piece about presidential killers. He also turned more to films (he had written a score for Stavisky in the '70s), writing songs for Madonna in Dick Tracy in 1990 and working on an original movie musical. But his next work to appear was a Broadway musical, Passion, in 1994. He was occupied in the 1990s teaching and overseeing various productions of his existing work, but he also prepared a new musical, which, after many delays and title changes, was scheduled to be staged in 2003 under the name Bounce., All Music Guide [-] Hide

Dancer, actor, and singer Fred Astaire worked steadily in various entertainment media during nine decades of the 20th century. The most celebrated dancer in the history of film, with appearances in 31 movie musicals between 1933 and 1968 (and a special Academy Award in recognition of his accomplishments in them), Astaire also danced on-stage and... [+] Read More

Dancer, actor, and singer Fred Astaire worked steadily in various entertainment media during nine decades of the 20th century. The most celebrated dancer in the history of film, with appearances in 31 movie musicals between 1933 and 1968 (and a special Academy Award in recognition of his accomplishments in them), Astaire also danced on-stage and on television (garnering two Emmy Awards in the process), and he even treated listening audiences to his accomplished tap dancing on records and on his own radio series. He appeared in another eight non-musical feature films and on numerous television programs, resulting in an Academy Award nomination and a third Emmy Award as an actor. His light tenor voice and smooth, conversational phrasing made him an ideal interpreter for the major songwriters of his era, and he introduced dozens of pop standards, many of them written expressly for him, by such composers as Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Burton Lane, Frank Loesser, Johnny Mercer, Cole Porter, Arthur Schwartz, Harry Warren, and Vincent Youmans. Although his efforts as a dancer necessarily overshadowed his purely musical work, he made hundreds of recordings over a period of more than 50 years, resulting in several major hits.

Astaire's long career breaks down neatly into four major phases. From 1905 to 1917, he and his sister Adele Astaire (b. Sep 10, 1897; d. Jan 25, 1981) danced and sang as the team of Fred and Adele Astaire in vaudeville. From 1917 to 1933, Astaire worked in the legitimate theater in 11 stage musicals, ten of them with his sister. From 1933 to 1957, he appeared in 30 movie musicals, ten of them teaming him with Ginger Rogers. From 1957 to 1981, he worked mostly as a character actor in films and on television. Although Fred and Adele Astaire garnered considerable critical attention and achieved stardom on Broadway and in the West End, no documentation beyond their reviews and a handful of recordings exists to preserve their legacy. On the other hand, Astaire's partnership with Rogers, immortalized on film, continued to fascinate viewers of succeeding decades much as it did those who attended the movies initially in the '30s. In those days, Astaire, gliding across polished dancefloors in his trademark "Top Hat, White Tie and Tails" (as Berlin put it in a song written for him), with Rogers beside him in a spectacular gown, served as an antidote for the Depression that gripped the country and reassured millions of filmgoers that elegance and gentility could overcome economic turmoil. This was Astaire's popular peak, when he and Rogers were among the country's biggest box-office stars, when his records topped the charts, and his radio show was listened to by millions every week. But his lengthy career was marked by a series of triumphs that made him one of the best-loved entertainers of the century.

Fred Astaire was born Frederick Austerlitz in Omaha, NE, on May 10, 1899. His father, Frederic (no "k") Austerlitz, was an Austrian immigrant who worked as a salesman for the Storz Brewing Company but was also a pianist with a strong interest in the performing arts. His mother, Johanna (Gelius) Austerlitz, shared this interest, and when his sister Adele Marie Austerlitz, who was 20 months his senior, showed a talent for dancing as a small child, she was enrolled at Chambers' Dancing Academy. The family faced a financial crisis in 1904 when a temperance movement led to the closing of the brewery, and they met it in surprising fashion by deciding that mother, daughter, and son would move to New York where Adele could be enrolled in the dancing school run by Claude Alvienne with an eye toward a professional career. Johanna, Adele, and Fred Austerlitz (soon renamed Ann, Adele, and Fred Astaire) arrived in New York in January 1905, and, shortly after Adele began studying with Alvienne, Fred joined her, creating the dance team of Fred and Adele Astaire, which made its professional debut in a vaudeville act created by Alvienne in Keyport, NJ, in November 1905. Astaire was six-years-old; his sister was eight.

The Astaires toured in vaudeville until 1909, by which time they had outgrown their act and a disparity in their heights made dancing together difficult. They retired temporarily, settling in Highwood Park, NJ, where Astaire attended grammar school . But after two years off, he and his sister were enrolled in Ned Wayburn's dancing school in New York in the summer of 1911, intending to return to vaudeville, which they did with a Wayburn-written act that December. From then on, they toured with gradually increasing success to the point in June 1917 that they were signed by the Shubert Organization to make the leap to the legitimate stage. This occurred with the musical revue Over the Top, which opened on Broadway on November 28, 1917, and ran 78 performances before going on a national tour that continued into the spring of 1918. The Astaires had seventh billing in the show, and they danced in three numbers, also singing in two of them. The Shubert quickly cast them in another revue, The Passing Show of 1918, which opened on July 25, 1918, and ran 142 performances, followed by a tour that ran through June 1919. The Astaires had eighth billing in this show. In addition to appearing together in three numbers, each also had a solo, Astaire's being "Squab Farm" (music by Sigmund Romberg, lyrics by Jean Schwartz). After the tour, they went into rehearsals for an operetta, Apple Blossoms, which opened on October 7, 1919, and ran 256 performances, until April 24, 1920, followed by a tour that ran from August to April 1921. Fourth-billed in this show, they danced in three numbers, but did not have speaking parts. They had two dances and were billed separately fifth and sixth in the cast for a second operetta, The Love Letter. It was a failure, opening October 4, 1921, and closing 25 days and 31 performances later on October 29, followed by a tour that ran only until December. But that gave them the opportunity to have their first speaking roles in a second show in the same season, For Goodness Sake, which opened on February 20, 1922, for a run of 103 performances through May 20, followed by a brief tour. This show allowed them to perform the music of Astaire's friend George Gershwin, one of several songwriters who contributed to the score.

The Astaires had received increasing critical support, which resulted in their receiving top billing in their sixth stage work, The Bunch and Judy, boasting a score by Jerome Kern and Anne Caldwell. Unfortunately, the show was a flop with a run of only 63 performances between November 28, 1922, and January 20, 1923. This failure again resulted in an opportunity, however, as the Astaires were invited to England to star in a re-tooled version of For Goodness Sake, re-christened Stop Flirting, which opened in the West End on May 30 and ran 418 performances, until August 1924. Its success brought the team's first chance to record, as they were contracted by HMV Records and went into a London studio on October 18, 1923, to perform two of their songs from the show, "The Whichness of the Whatness" and "Oh Gee! Oh Gosh!" (music and lyrics for both by William Daly and Paul Lannin), soon released in the U.K. only on either side of the 78 rpm (HMV B-1719), Astaire's first record release.

The Astaires returned to New York to appear in a new musical written for them with songs by George and Ira Gershwin, Lady, Be Good! It opened December 1, 1924, and became an enormous hit, running 330 performances, until September 12, 1925, followed by a two-month tour. Returning to England, the Astaires opened the show in the West End on April 14, 1926, resulting in a 326-performance run that lasted until January 22, 1927. Shortly after the London opening, they recorded songs from the show for the English Columbia Records label (an imprint of EMI and no relation to the American Columbia label) in what amounted to an original cast album, albeit spread across three separately released 78s. Accompanied by George Gershwin on piano, they performed "Fascinating Rhythm," "Hang on to Me," and "I'd Rather Charleston" (lyrics by Desmond Carter), and Astaire gave made his first solo recording on "The Half of It, Dearie, Blues" on April 19, 1926. At a later session, they were accompanied by an orchestra for "Swiss Miss," and Adele and cast member George Vollaire sang "So Am I."

After a British tour, the Astaires returned to the U.S. in June 1927 to prepare for another Gershwin show, Funny Face, which opened on Broadway on November 22, 1927, and ran 250 performances until June 23, 1928. Shortly before the opening, The Jazz Singer, the first sound film, had opened successfully, featuring Broadway star Al Jolson, and the Hollywood movie studios became interested in other stage stars. The Astaires did a screen test for Paramount Pictures for a proposed movie version of Funny Face, but nothing came of it. Instead, the Astaires took Funny Face to London, where it opened November 8, 1928, for a run of 263 performances, which, with a tour to follow, kept them in Great Britain until April 1930. Again, shortly after the opening, they recorded some of the songs for English Columbia, performing "The Babbitt and the Bromide" and the title song together, while Astaire recorded "High Hat" and "My One and Only" solo. Subsequently, he also cut a couple of singles not associated with the show, "Not My Girl"/"Louisiana," accompanied by Al Starita and His Boyfriends in April 1929 and "Puttin' on the Ritz" (music and lyrics by Irving Berlin)/"Crazy Feet" in March 1930.

The Astaires next appeared in producer Florenz Ziegfeld's Smiles, a flop that opened on November 18, 1930, and played only 63 performances through January 10, 1931. They quickly rebounded with The Band Wagon, a revue with songs by Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz, which opened June 3, 1931, and ran 260 performances, until January 16, 1932, followed by a tour that ran through May. Bandleader Leo Reisman recorded a collection of the show's songs for Victor Records, and he engaged the Astaires to sing them. As a duo, they recorded "Hoops" and a two-part medley of "Gems from the Band Wagon," while Astaire sang "I Love Louisa," "New Sun in the Sky," and "White Heat" solo. In addition to releasing 78s of the material, Victor also pressed up an experimental 33 1/3 rpm containing the medley, but the format did not catch on. (Seventeen years later, Columbia Records employed the same disc speed when it unveiled its new "LP" -- long-playing -- records.) Researchers Joel Whitburn (Pop Memories) and Edward Foote Gardner (Popular Songs of the Twentieth Century), who have estimated chart performance for this pre-chart era, both cite "I Love Louisa" as a Top Ten hit and also award chart showings to "New Sun in the Sky."

Adele Astaire gave her final performance in The Band Wagon in Chicago on March 15, 1932. On May 9, she married Charles Cavendish, the son of the Duke of Devonshire, and went to live with him in Ireland, retiring from her performing career. Astaire carried on without her, planning his next theatrical venture, the musical Gay Divorce, with songs by Cole Porter, for the fall. On November 22, the day after the show opened a tryout run in New Haven, CT, and a week before it opened on Broadway, he joined Reisman to record two songs from the score, "Night and Day" and "I've Got You on My Mind," for a Victor single. Emphasizing the score, and in particular "Night and Day," turned out to be a good idea. Gay Divorce earned only modest reviews from critics who had often favored Astaire's sister over him and missed her, and it did only modest business at first. But it caught on along with "Night and Day," cited by both Whitburn and Gardner as a number one hit in early 1933. As a result, the show ultimately ran 248 performances on Broadway, until July 1, 1933. Astaire's growing success as a solo stage and recording artist again attracted the interest of Hollywood, and in January 1933 David O. Selznick, in charge of production for RKO Pictures, had him do another screen test. Selznick called the test "wretched," referring to Astaire's "enormous ears and bad chin line," but suggested that the performer's "charm is so tremendous" that it came through even so. He circulated the test among other executives at the company, resulting in a legend that attached itself to Astaire forever afterward. Supposedly, one person responded, "Can't act. Can't sing. Balding. Can dance a little." In her autobiography, Debbie, My Life, Debbie Reynolds finally named this studio official as Burt Grady, and Astaire, speaking to his biographer Bob Thomas (Astaire: The Man, the Dancer) clarified the remark. "It has been repeated many times, usually incorrectly," he recalled. "What the man said was: 'Can't act. Slightly bald. Also dances.'" Notwithstanding this assessment, Astaire was signed to a contract by RKO on May 27, 1933, for one film, with options for more. Meanwhile, he recorded a few additional sessions with Reisman for Victor, including a version of "The Gold Diggers' Song (We're in the Money)" (music by Harry Warren, lyrics by Al Dubin), which had been introduced by Ginger Rogers in the film Gold Diggers of 1933.

On July 12, 1933, Astaire married socialite Phyllis Livingston Baker Potter. They would have two children and remain married until her death from cancer on September 13, 1954. Within days of his wedding, Astaire flew to Los Angeles to begin work on his first film. But since RKO was not yet ready to begin filming, he was loaned to MGM for a featured part in Dancing Lady, starring Joan Crawford and Clark Gable, which became his movie debut when it opened in November. Then he took on a featured role in his first RKO picture, Flying Down to Rio, in which he was billed fifth behind Ginger Rogers, with whom he danced onscreen for the first time. After he finished filming, he left for England to open a British production of Gay Divorce on November 2, 1933, with a limited engagement of 108 performances running through April 7, 1934. This would be his final work as a stage performer. While in London, he recorded two songs from Flying Down to Rio, the title song and "Music Makes Me" (which Rogers sang in the picture). Both songs are credited as chart hits by Whitburn and Gardner. Flying Down to Rio opened in the U.S. in December 1933 and was a hit, too, particularly because of audience reaction to Astaire and Rogers' dance of "The Carioca" (which became the first song to win an Academy Award). As a result, RKO quickly bought rights to both Gay Divorce and a concurrent Broadway hit, Roberta, as screen vehicles for the two. The former was retitled The Gay Divorcee, and all of Cole Porter's songs except "Night and Day" were replaced, along with much of the plot. Nevertheless, Astaire (who took on the uncredited role of choreographer, which he would maintain throughout his film career) and Rogers were a hit with audiences when the film opened in October 1934. Roberta retained more of Jerome Kern's original score for the show, and the composer was even brought in to write new numbers. The result, released in February 1935, was Astaire and Rogers' third hit film.

For their fourth screen pairing, Top Hat, RKO brought in Irving Berlin to write an original song score, and Astaire prepared for the release by signing to Brunswick Records and making studio recordings of all five of the songs: "Cheek to Cheek," "No Strings," "Isn't This a Lovely Day?," "Top Hat, White Tie and Tails," and "The Piccolino." The records were released simultaneously with the film's premiere in August 1935, and Astaire appeared several times on the popular radio show Your Hit Parade to promote both, with explosive results. "Cheek to Cheek," "Top Hat, White Tie and Tails," "Isn't This a Lovely Day?," and "No Strings" all made the Top Ten of the hit parade, with "Cheek to Cheek" spending five weeks at number one. The film, meanwhile, was the most successful Astaire/Rogers movie ever, registering a profit of over one million dollars according to RKO's accountants. Naturally, the two were re-teamed with Berlin for their next film, Follow the Fleet, for which the songwriter provided another seven songs. Astaire recorded five of them, also sneaking into the session a composition of his own, "I'm Building Up to an Awful Let-Down" (lyrics by Johnny Mercer). That song and three entries from the film, "Let's Face the Music and Dance," "Let Yourself Go," and "I'm Putting All My Eggs in One Basket," all reached the Top Five of the hit parade concurrent with the film's release in February 1936. Follow the Fleet showed a slight downtick in profitability, but still poured nearly one million into RKO's coffers. Those profits declined consistently for subsequent Astaire/Rogers films, but biographer Edward Gallafent (Astaire and Rogers) has demonstrated that this was because of rising production costs for the series, not diminishing revenues at the box office.



RKO commissioned a sixth Astaire/Rogers film, this time bringing back Jerome Kern, who wrote an original score with lyricist Dorothy Fields for Swing Time. Astaire recorded five of the songs for Brunswick, and from that batch "The Way You Look Tonight" spent six weeks at number one in the hit parade and "A Fine Romance" peaked at number three upon the film's release in August 1936. Another drop in profits caused RKO to decide to break up the team temporarily after their upcoming seventh picture. Meanwhile, on September 15, Astaire began hosting his own weekly radio program, The Fred Astaire Show (aka The Packard Hour) on the NBC network. He found himself stretched to handle both the series and his extensive preparations for the dances in his films, however, and despite its popularity he gave up the show after one season. Meanwhile, George and Ira Gershwin were brought in to write songs for the next Astaire/Rogers film, Shall We Dance, and Astaire recorded all six of their contributions for Brunswick, resulting in three singles and another Top Ten entry in the hit parade, "They Can't Take That Away from Me," following the film's release in April 1937. Shall We Dance was only half as profitable as Swing Time, as production costs neared one million dollars. Astaire's next film, A Damsel in Distress (released in November 1937), his first not to feature Rogers since Dancing Lady, actually lost money, due to a production cost that topped one million. He recorded four of its Gershwin songs and scored another Top Ten hit with "Nice Work if You Can Get It." The release of the ninth AstaireRogers film, Carefree, in September 1938, was accompanied by the announcement that the team would be dissolved permanently after their next outing. The film featured a score by Irving Berlin, and it gave Astaire another number one hit with "Change Partners," even though the picture itself lost money for RKO. Nevertheless, the studio pressed ahead with The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, an uncharacteristic film biography of the popular dance team of the '10s that appeared in the spring of 1939 and again cost more money than it made by company estimates.

Astaire ended his relationship with RKO after The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle. Over the next several years, he accepted one-off offers from different studios, making Broadway Melody of 1940 (February 1940); Second Chorus (January 1941), and Holiday Inn (June 1942), the latter with Bing Crosby, for Paramount; You'll Never Get Rich (September 1941) and You Were Never Lovelier (October 1942), both with Rita Hayworth, for Columbia Pictures; and The Sky's the Limit (July 1943) back at RKO before signing a long-term contract with MGM in 1944. Meanwhile, he made recordings of some of his movie songs and other material for Columbia Records in 1940 and for Decca Records from 1941 to 1946. In 1942, Decca accompanied the release of You Were Never Lovelier, which featured a score written by Jerome Kern and Johnny Mercer, with Astaire's first album of three 78s.

Astaire made the long-in-gestation ensemble film Ziegfeld Follies (not in general release until 1946) at MGM and then the unsuccessful Yolanda and the Thief (October 1945) before being loaned to Paramount for Blue Skies, another film with Bing Crosby and the songs of Irving Berlin. As he had with Holiday Inn, he also joined Crosby for a Decca album of songs from Blue Skies, duetting on "A Couple of Song and Dance Men" and contributing a solo re-recording of "Puttin' on the Ritz," and the disc peaked at number two in the Billboard album chart in the fall of 1946. The film also was a big hit, and the 47-year-old Astaire decided the time had come to hang up his dancing shoes. He announced his retirement to spend more time on two other activities, owning and breeding racehorses, and launching a chain of dancing schools. He did not become completely inactive as an entertainer, for example acting in the radio play The Animal Kingdom on ABC's Theatre Guild on the Air on May 4, 1947, but he kept to his decision to retire from films until the fall of 1947, when Gene Kelly broke his ankle just prior to production on MGM's Easter Parade, a musical with Judy Garland featuring Berlin songs, and he agreed to go back to step in as a replacement. The film was released in June 1948, and after its success nothing more was heard publicly of Astaire's retirement. During his absence from the studio, MGM had started its own record label, and it began releasing soundtrack albums from its movie musicals. These became the chief outlet for Astaire's commercial recordings over the next several years, with MGM soundtracks for Easter Parade; The Barkleys of Broadway (March 1949), which marked a reunion with Ginger Rogers; Three Little Words (1950), a film biography of songwriters Harry Ruby and Bert Kalmar, which spent 11 weeks at number one in the Billboard chart; Royal Wedding (February 1951), with a score by Alan Jay Lerner and Burton Lane, which reached number three and spawned the gold-selling novelty single "How Could You Believe Me When I Said I Loved You When You Know I've Been a Liar All My Life? (The Liar Song)," a duet with Jane Powell; The Belle of New York (February 1952); and The Band Wagon (July 1953), much altered from the 1931 stage version. (Let's Dance [August 1950], a loan-out to Paramount, did not result in a soundtrack album initially, although, as with all Astaire's musical films, its songs eventually turned up on an unlicensed disc.)

At the 1949 Academy Awards ceremony, Astaire, whose work as a singing and dancing star of movie musicals did not fit into any Oscar category, was presented with a special award "for his unique artistry and his contributions to the technique of musical pictures." In 1952, he was approached by Norman Granz, a record producer and the impresario of the successful "Jazz at the Philharmonic" concert series, to re-record his catalog of standards backed by a small jazz group. Granz engaged Oscar Peterson (piano), Alvin Stoller (drums), Flip Phillips (tenor saxophone), Charlie Shavers (trumpet), Barney Kessel (guitar), and Ray Brown (bass), and took Astaire into a recording studio in December 1952 for marathon sessions that resulted in the 38-track, four-LP box set The Astaire Story, released by Granz's Clef label through Mercury Records in 1953.

With the completion of his MGM contract in 1953, Astaire again thought of retiring, but he kept accepting offers for films on an ad hoc basis, making Daddy Long Legs (May 1955), accompanied by an RCA Victor single of its song "Something's Gotta Give" (music and lyrics by Johnny Mercer), and an adaptation of his old stage hit Funny Face (March 1957), with a soundtrack album on Granz's Verve Records label, both for Paramount, then Cole Porter's Silk Stockings (May 1957) for MGM, with an MGM Records soundtrack LP. With that, he turned away from movie musicals and focused his attention primarily to television, starting with an acting role in a half-hour comic film, Imp on a Cobweb Leash, broadcast live on the General Electric Theatre program on December 1, 1957. Far more ambitious was the one-hour An Evening with Fred Astaire, broadcast on October 17, 1958, which found him dancing with new partner Barrie Chase. The special won nine Emmy Awards including Outstanding Single Program of the Year and Astaire's award for Best Single Performance by an Actor. He followed with two more similar shows, Another Evening with Fred Astaire (November 4, 1959) and Astaire Time (September 28, 1960), which earned him a second Emmy Award for Outstanding Performance in a Variety or Music Program or Series. Meanwhile, he took occasional acting roles in non-musical films: On the Beach (December 1959), The Pleasure of His Company (May 1961), and The Notorious Landlady (June 1962). He also made an album, Now (1959) for Kapp Records, which consisted largely of re-recordings of his old favorites. Also, he issued a combined television soundtrack album, Three Evenings with Fred Astaire (1960) on his own Ava Records label, named after his daughter, as well as a few singles. But most of his work in the '60s continued to be done for television. Starting in 1961, he hosted Alcoa Premiere, an anthology series of one-hour teleplays, and he acted in several of them in 1962. On October 2, 1964, he and Chase danced and acted in Think Pretty, a teleplay that was part of the series Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theater. In November 1965, he appeared in several episodes of the medical series Dr. Kildare. He and Chase made a series of appearances on The Hollywood Palace, a variety series, in 1966. The Fred Astaire Show, his fourth TV special, aired on February 7, 1968. And in 1970, he had a continuing role on the series It Takes a Thief. His first feature film appearance in six years was also his first appearance in a movie musical in 11 years, and his last, a belated screen adaptation of the 1947 Broadway musical Finian's Rainbow released in August 1968 and accompanied by a soundtrack LP on Warner Bros. Records that spent six months in the Billboard chart. Less than a year later, he was back onscreen starring in the crime picture Midas Run, released in May 1969.

By 1970, the 70-year-old Astaire was semi-retired, but he continued to work periodically. He co-starred in a Western TV movie, The Over-the-Hill Gang Rides Again, broadcast on ABC on November 17, 1970, and less than a month later, on December 13, served as a voice for the animated TV film Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town, which was accompanied by a soundtrack LP released by MGM. In 1972, he appeared in two television specials, the first a Gershwin tribute, 'S Wonderful, 'S Marvelous, 'S Gershwin, broadcast on NBC on January 17, which also had a soundtrack LP released on Daybreak Records, and the second a patriotic program, Make Mine Red, White and Blue, broadcast on NBC on September 9, for which he served as host. In May 1974, he was one of the hosts of the anthology film That's Entertainment!, consisting of clips from MGM musicals. The film was an enormous hit, with a double-LP soundtrack album that reached the charts, and was followed two years later by That's Entertainment, Part II, for which Astaire and Gene Kelly served as hosts, and for which they did a little modest singing and dancing. Of course, it too was accompanied by a soundtrack album. In between, Astaire took a role in the disaster film The Towering Inferno, released in December 1974. It became the biggest box-office hit of the year, and he earned his only Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor.

In 1975, Astaire accepted an offer from record producer Ken Barnes to go to England and record a series of albums for United Artists Records. He cut three LPs: A Couple of Song and Dance Men, a duet collection with Bing Crosby; They Can't Take These Away from Me, yet another set of re-recordings of his old favorites; and Attitude Dancing, containing recordings of some new songs and some of his own compositions. In 1976, he returned to filmmaking in the detective film The Amazing Dobermans, released in November, and he followed it with Un Taxi Mauve (The Purple Taxi), an international production released outside the U.S. in May 1977 that failed to find an American distributor. The Easter Bunny Is Coming to Town, broadcast on ABC April 6, 1977, was something of a sequel to Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town, with Astaire again providing a voice for an animated character. A Family Upside Down was a made-for-TV movie broadcast on NBC April 9, 1978, in which he co-starred with Helen Hayes; his performance won him his third Emmy Award for Outstanding Actor in a Special. On December 3, 1978, he was one of the recipients of the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors, presented at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and broadcast on CBS two nights later. The following month, he appeared in an episode of the science-fiction series Battlestar Galactica, and he starred in the TV movie The Man in the Santa Claus Suit, broadcast on NBC December 23, 1979, a performance that allowed him the opportunity to make his final recording, of the song "Once a Year Night" (music by Peter Matz, lyrics by Norman Gimbel), issued as a promotional single by Dick Clark Productions. On June 24, 1980, Astaire married for the second time, to jockey Robyn Smith. The bride was 35-years-old, the groom 81. He made his final film appearance in the thriller Ghost Story, released in December 1981. He died of pneumonia at 88 on June 22, 1987.

Astaire's film work is, of course, available extensively on video. The story is somewhat more problematic with regard to his recordings, although there is no dearth of Astaire discs in release at any given moment. European copyright law, which allows recordings to fall into the public domain after 50 years, has led to an unending series of unlicensed compilation albums on which Astaire's performances are remastered from old 78s; they vary wildly in quality. There are also numerous unlicensed compilations of film soundtrack material, also of dubious value. The major American record labels, which claim ownership of the studio recordings for the U.S. market, own different pieces of Astaire's catalog. Sony BMG controls the Victor, Brunswick, and Columbia recordings; Universal has the Decca, Mercury, Verve, and Kapp material. EMI has the early English Columbia tracks and the United Artists recordings. Periodically, these labels repackage their holdings, with notable collections including Starring Fred Astaire (Columbia, 1989), Rarities (RCA, 1990), Top Hat: Hits from Hollywood (Columbia/Legacy, 1994), The Complete London Sessions (EMI, 1999), and DRG's' reissue of The Astaire Story with bonus tracks. Astaire's soundtrack recordings have been compiled by Rhino in the excellent collections Fred Astaire at MGM (1997) and Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers at RKO (1998). DRG has reissued the soundtracks from the TV specials. That such collections continue to appear, both from reputable and questionable sources, testifies to the ongoing appeal of Astaire as a singer of timeless American popular music. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Singer/actress Judy Garland had a varied career that began in vaudeville and extended into movies, records, radio, television, and personal appearances. She is best remembered as the big-voiced star of a series of movie musicals, particularly The Wizard of Oz, in which she sang her signature song, "Over the Rainbow." But unlike most other film... [+] Read More

Singer/actress Judy Garland had a varied career that began in vaudeville and extended into movies, records, radio, television, and personal appearances. She is best remembered as the big-voiced star of a series of movie musicals, particularly The Wizard of Oz, in which she sang her signature song, "Over the Rainbow." But unlike most other film stars of her era, she also maintained a career as a recording artist, and after her movie-making days were largely over, she was able to transfer her stardom to performing and recording, culminating in her Grammy-winning number one album Judy at Carnegie Hall.

The third daughter of former vaudevillians running a theater in Grand Rapids, MN, Garland made her stage debut singing "Jingle Bells" during the holiday season when she was two years old. Soon after, she joined the singing group formed by her two sisters. Early on, her surprisingly mature voice caused her to dominate the group. Her family moved to California in the fall of 1926, where the sisters found occasional work on-stage and on radio, even appearing in several film shorts in 1929 and 1930. In the summer of 1934, they toured in the Midwest, where George Jessel suggested they change their name from the Gumm Sisters to the Garland Sisters; eventually, each sister also picked a new first name, with Garland choosing hers for the Hoagy Carmichael/Sammy Lerner song "Judy."

The Garland Sisters broke up in the summer of 1935 upon the marriage of Garland's oldest sister, Mary Jane. Soon after, Garland successfully auditioned for the MGM film studio, and she was signed to a contract that fall. Within weeks, she made her network radio debut on The Shell Chateau Hour. The movie studio did not have immediate plans for her, but her career did advance in another area. She had made test recordings on two occasions in 1935 for Decca Records; finally, in June 1936 the label recorded her singing "Stompin' at the Savoy" and released it the following month as her debut single, although she was not yet signed to a term contract with the label.

Garland made her feature film debut in the musical Pigskin Parade, on loan to the 20th Century Fox studio, in November 1936. She finally made an impression at MGM when she sang a version of "You Made Me Love You" with special material written by Roger Edens that transformed it into a tribute to film star Clark Gable, at Gable's birthday party on February 1, 1937. The performance was re-created in Broadway Melody of 1938, released in August. After attending a preview, Decca president Jack Kapp finally decided to sign Garland to a recording contract, and the label soon released her studio versions of "Everybody Sing" and "Dear Mr. Gable: You Made Me Love You" from the film.

Garland made four more films (Thoroughbreds Don't Cry, Everybody Sing, Listen, Darling, and Love Finds Andy Hardy) and a couple more singles through 1938, but she didn't achieve major stardom until the release of The Wizard of Oz in August 1939. Glenn Miller had jumped the gun on the film by recording "Over the Rainbow," and the song was already a hit before the movie was released. But Garland's recording for Decca also became popular, and her success was sealed by the release of Babes in Arms shortly after The Wizard of Oz. At the 1939 Academy Awards in February 1940, she was presented with a miniature Oscar for her outstanding performance as a screen juvenile. In March, Decca released her first album, Judy Garland Souvenir Album, a three-disc, six-song set combining the "Dear Mr. Gable: You Made Me Love You" single with her current singles "In Between" (from Love Finds Andy Hardy) and "Figaro" (from Babes in Arms).

Garland appeared in three films in 1940, Andy Hardy Meets Debutante, Strike Up the Band, and Little Nellie Kelly, and she scored a Top Ten hit with her recording of "I'm Nobody's Baby," featured in the first of them. Her December recording session for songs from Little Nellie Kelly was conducted by David Rose, whom she married on July 28, 1941. She appeared in another three movies that year, Ziegfeld Girl, Life Begins for Andy Hardy, and Babes on Broadway. Her only film released in 1942 was For Me and My Gal, also starring Gene Kelly, who paired with her on a recording of the title song that became a Top Ten hit. In 1943, she starred in Presenting Lily Mars and Girl Crazy, and made a guest appearance in Thousands Cheer. She also made her concert debut during the year, appearing on July 1 with the Philadelphia Orchestra under André Kostelanetz at an open-air performance at the Robin Hood Dell in Philadelphia reported to have attracted 30,000 listeners, and toured service camps in support of the war effort.

Garland's film work became less frequent after 1943, tending to average a single major release each year. Meet Me in St. Louis, her next movie, was released in December 1944, directed by Vincente Minnelli, whom she married on June 15, 1945, just after her divorce from David Rose. Her recording of "The Trolley Song" from the score became a Top Ten hit, as did her album of songs from the film. She followed with another Minnelli-directed film, The Clock, in May 1945, her first non-singing dramatic role. In June, she joined Bing Crosby on a recording of the novelty "Yah-Ta-Ta Yah-Ta-Ta (Talk, Talk, Talk)," her first Top Ten hit with a song not featured in one of her films. Lyricist Johnny Mercer got the jump on all competitors in scoring a hit with his song "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe" (written with composer Harry Warren) from Garland's upcoming film, The Harvey Girls, taking it to number one in July. But Garland's version, released in September, was also a Top Ten hit. The film appeared in January 1946.

Garland gave birth to a daughter, Liza Minnelli, on March 12, 1946, and cut back on her work schedule, though she made guest appearances in two other 1946 films, Ziegfeld Follies and Till the Clouds Roll By. The latter, a biography of Jerome Kern, marked the birth of MGM Records and with it the soundtrack album, its aural equivalent reaching the Top Ten. Although Garland remained nominally signed to Decca, the rest of her record releases through 1950 were MGM soundtrack recordings.

Garland returned to filmmaking full-time with The Pirate, released in June 1948, followed quickly by Easter Parade, co-starring Fred Astaire, in July, and then by a guest appearance in Words and Music in December. The last, a biography of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, produced a number one soundtrack album. At this point, Garland's relationship with MGM began to unravel. Decades of diet pills to control her weight, amphetamines to give her energy, and barbiturates to help her sleep -- reportedly given to her by her mother early on and later by the studio -- had resulted in addiction and emotional instability inconsistent with the grueling demands of making lavish movie musicals. At the same time, the studio, losing audiences to television and facing a severing of its relationship with the Loews' theater chain, was more dependent on big-budget films and more constrained financially. Cast in a second Fred Astaire film, The Barkleys of Broadway, Garland was fired from the production and suspended by the studio for her erratic behavior. She was then reinstated and made In the Good Old Summertime, released in the summer of 1949. By then, she had been fired from Annie Get Your Gun and suspended a second time. She was again reinstated and made Summer Stock, which was released in the summer of 1950 and produced a Top Ten soundtrack album. But when she was fired from Royal Wedding and suspended a third time, on July 17, 1950, she made a halfhearted suicide attempt that got into the papers and substantially changed her image from the ingenuous child of The Wizard of Oz to a tragic Hollywood casualty. In September, MGM formally canceled her contract. She divorced Minnelli on March 22, 1951.

Garland turned from the movies to the concert stage, accepting an offer from the London Palladium to appear for four weeks starting on April 9, 1951. It was the beginning of a major comeback. Returning to the U.S., she re-opened the Palace Theatre in New York as a live venue for what was scheduled to be a four-week engagement on October 16, 1951; it stretched to 19 weeks, finally ending on February 24, 1952, at a reported gross of $750,000. As a result, she was given a special Tony Award "for an important contribution to the revival of vaudeville." On June 2, 1952, she married her manager, Sid Luft. She gave birth to Lorna Luft on November 21, 1952.

Garland and Luft formed a production company and signed with Warner Bros. Pictures to produce a remake of A Star Is Born. It opened in October 1954, resulting in an Academy Award nomination for Garland. The soundtrack album, released by Columbia Records, was a Top Ten hit. Garland gave birth to a son, Joey Luft, on March 29, 1955. She toured the West Coast in July, and in September starred in a live, 90-minute television special tied in to her debut Capitol Records album, Miss Show Business, which reached the Top Ten. The show brought her an Emmy nomination for Best Female Singer. There was another 30-minute TV special in April 1956, a four-week engagement at a Las Vegas hotel in July and August, and a two-month return to the Palace in September, during which Capitol released the chart LP Judy. She did another three weeks in Las Vegas in May 1957 and that month released her third Capitol LP, Alone, which again was a chart item. She toured the U.S. through October, then spent a month at the Dominion Theatre in London. She continued to perform all over the U.S. in 1958 and 1959, and to record for Capitol (Judy in Love and the concert album Judy Garland at the Grove in 1958, The Letter in 1959). In November 1959, she was hospitalized for hepatitis and advised to give up performing, but she returned to action with a performance at the London Palladium in August 1960, followed by more European dates through December and a new Capitol album, Judy! That's Entertainment!, in October. She had a cameo in the film Pepe, released in December. There were more European shows in January and February 1961. Then, on April 23, 1961, she appeared at Carnegie Hall in New York, and the show was recorded for a double-LP set. Judy at Carnegie Hall was number one by September and a gold record within a year; it won Grammy Awards for Album of the Year and Best Solo Vocal Performance, Female.

In December 1961, she returned to films with a dramatic role in Judgment at Nuremberg that earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She starred in her first television special in six years in February 1962, earning Emmy nominations for Program of the Year and Outstanding Program Achievement in the Field of Variety. Her next album, The Garland Touch, released in July, reached the Top 20. In September, she returned to performing in Las Vegas, spending six weeks at the Sahara, with additional dates through February 1963. November saw the release of Gay Purr-ee, an animated musical film for which she provided one of the character voices. In January 1963, she starred in the dramatic film A Child Is Waiting. There was another television special in March that brought an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Program Achievement in the Field of Music. Its success led CBS to offer her her own weekly variety series. In May, she portrayed a troubled singing star in I Could Go on Singing, her final film appearance. The soundtrack album reached the Top 40.

The Judy Garland Show premiered on Sunday, September 29, 1963, programmed directly opposite NBC's Western drama Bonanza, the second-highest rated show on television. As such, it never had a chance to become a success, but it ran for 26 weeks, through March 30, 1964, and earned an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Performance in a Variety or Musical Program or Series. Capitol released Just for Openers, an album of performances drawn from the series, on the day of the final broadcast.

In May 1964, Garland undertook a tour of the Far East marred by illness. In November, she returned to the London Palladium, performing with her 18-year-old daughter, Liza Minnelli. The performance was filmed and recorded. A special was broadcast on British television in December, and a double album, "Live" at the London Palladium, was released on Capitol in August 1965, spending several months in the charts. Garland toured the U.S. during 1965. She married actor Mark Herron on November 14, 1965, just after her divorce from Sid Luft became final. (She divorced Herron on April 11, 1967.) She was less active in 1966, restricting herself to a few live and television appearances. But she worked extensively in 1967, including a month-long return to the Palace that summer which produced a new live album on a new label, Judy Garland at Home at the Palace -- Opening Night, in the charts for ABC Records in September. There were a handful of dates in the U.S. in 1968, the last of them being a performance on July 20 at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia. On December 30, she opened a five-week engagement at the Talk of the Town nightclub in London. She married her fifth husband, nightclub manager Mickey Deans, on March 15, 1969. In March, she embarked on a trio of Scandinavian dates, the last of which was at the Falkoner Center in Copenhagen on March 25. Three months later, she died of an accidental overdose of barbiturates.

In the decades following her death, Judy Garland's troubled personal life, which contrasted so starkly with the exuberance and innocence of her film roles, has been the grist for numerous books and other accounts, to the point that her career is sometimes viewed more as an object lesson in Hollywood excess than as the remarkable string of multimedia accomplishments it was. But even the salacious and exploitative material is dependent on her star power and vocal pyrotechnics to have any appeal. Garland herself, who was so attracted to the backstage Hollywood story of A Star Is Born, performing it both on radio and later on film, certainly understood the attraction of a tragic image and may have used it deliberately. Nevertheless, the core of her significance as an artist remains her amazing voice and emotional commitment to her songs.

Garland's extensive work as a singer, including her appearances in films and on radio and television, in addition to live performances and studio recordings, makes her discography lengthy and chaotic. In the '90s, her soundtrack recordings saw reissue through Rhino Records, while MCA undertook a box set of her '30s and '40s Decca studio recordings (The Complete Decca Masters [Plus]) and Capitol compiled its own box of her '50s and '60s material, (The One & Only). Beyond these lies a vast and ever-increasing sea of quasi-legal releases that consumers should approach with caution. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Judy Garland may have reached more ears via her movie roles than with any other medium, and this 23-track anthology assembles some of her most noteworthy performances from 1936 to 1963. All of these are the original soundtrack versions, not re-recordings, which means that while the fidelity on some cuts isn't as good as what you might be used to... [+] Read More

Judy Garland may have reached more ears via her movie roles than with any other medium, and this 23-track anthology assembles some of her most noteworthy performances from 1936 to 1963. All of these are the original soundtrack versions, not re-recordings, which means that while the fidelity on some cuts isn't as good as what you might be used to from renditions you've heard elsewhere, these are the real deal, not re-creations. A bunch of familiar standards are here: "Over the Rainbow," "The Trolley Song" (from Meet Me in St. Louis), "Dear Mr. Gable," "The Texas Tornado," "I'm Nobody's Baby," "I Could Go on Singing," and two cuts from A Star Is Born, "Gotta Have Me Go With You" and "The Man That Got Away." As a retrospective of her musical career, this serves almost as well as a standard greatest-hits collection, with scrupulously detailed liner notes and photos in the enclosed booklet. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Despite a long history of pop and musical-theater success in England, Sarah Brightman was not well known in the U.S. until her 1997 album Time to Say Goodbye became a triumph, topping the Billboard classical crossover chart for most of 1998. Really Useful Records, her former husband Andrew Lloyd Webber's label, took advantage of her sudden... [+] Read More

Despite a long history of pop and musical-theater success in England, Sarah Brightman was not well known in the U.S. until her 1997 album Time to Say Goodbye became a triumph, topping the Billboard classical crossover chart for most of 1998. Really Useful Records, her former husband Andrew Lloyd Webber's label, took advantage of her sudden popularity to release this compilation of recordings of Lloyd Webber songs she'd made between 1985 and 1995, and since she had served as a real muse to the composer, many of his most popular songs were included. Several of them -- "Pie Jesu," "All I Ask of You," "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again," and "Amigos Para Siempre (Friends for Life)" -- had been chart hits for Brightman in the U.K. So had "The Phantom of the Opera," the title song of a musical Lloyd Webber had written for her and in which she had starred, albeit in a different recording from the one included here, which was the Original London Cast version featuring her co-star, Michael Crawford. Also included were the most memorable songs from such Lloyd Webber shows as Evita ("Don't Cry for Me Argentina"), Song & Dance ("Unexpected Song," "Tell Me on a Sunday"), Aspects of Love ("Love Changes Everything"), and Cats ("Memory," "Gus: The Theatre Cat," "Macavity: The Mystery Cat"). Even the songs that had not been tailored specifically for Brightman had been written for her kind of voice, a full-bodied, dramatic soprano, and she sang with a thorough understanding of the composer's intentions. The result was an excellent primer for anyone who had first encountered Brightman with "Time to Say Goodbye" and was wondering where she came from. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide [-] Hide

[-] Hide

Documenting the Jewish-American experience in song, Patinkin weaves a rich tapestry of legend, oral history and popular song, all in Yiddish. The most interesting tunes include Paul Simon's "American Tune" and "Maria" from West Side Story which become perfectly adapted to Patinkin's use. The lush arrangements by Paul Ford lend a sweeping... [+] Read More

Documenting the Jewish-American experience in song, Patinkin weaves a rich tapestry of legend, oral history and popular song, all in Yiddish. The most interesting tunes include Paul Simon's "American Tune" and "Maria" from West Side Story which become perfectly adapted to Patinkin's use. The lush arrangements by Paul Ford lend a sweeping cinematic air to the project, making it at once humble and grand, much like the dreams of millions of immigrants. ~ Tim Sheridan, All Music Guide [-] Hide

[-] Hide