#16901
Charles Williams
1893 - 1978 (85 years)
Charles Williams was a British composer and conductor, contributing music to over 50 films. While his career ran from 1934 through 1968, much of his work came to the big screen as stock music and was therefore uncredited.
Go to Profile#16902
Warne Marsh
1927 - 1987 (60 years)
Warne Marion Marsh was an American tenor saxophonist. Born in Los Angeles, his playing first came to prominence in the 1950s as a protégé of pianist Lennie Tristano and earned attention in the 1970s as a member of Supersax.
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Lowell Sherman
1885 - 1934 (49 years)
Lowell Sherman was an American actor and film director. In an unusual practice for the time, he served as both actor and director on several films in the early 1930s. He later turned exclusively to directing. Having scored huge successes directing the films She Done Him Wrong and Morning Glory , he was at the height of his career when he died after a brief illness.
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Scott Willits
1895 - 1973 (78 years)
Scott Allison Willits was an American violin teacher with the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, Illinois, who coached many members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1940 through 1973. He was a student and "first American Representative" of Otakar Ševčík who created a leading pedagogical method for teaching violin that is still widely used today.
Go to Profile#16905
Haven Gillespie
1888 - 1975 (87 years)
James Lamont Gillespie pen name Haven Gillespie, was an American Tin Pan Alley composer and lyricist. He was the writer of "You Go to My Head", "Honey", "By the Sycamore Tree", "That Lucky Old Sun", "Breezin' Along With The Breeze", "Right or Wrong," "Beautiful Love", "Drifting and Dreaming", and "Louisiana Fairy Tale" , each song in collaboration with other people such as Beasley Smith, Ervin R. Schmidt, Richard A. Whiting, Wayne King, and Loyal Curtis. He also wrote the seasonal standard "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town".
Go to Profile#16906
Nelson Eddy
1901 - 1967 (66 years)
Nelson Ackerman Eddy was an American actor and baritone singer who appeared in 19 musical films during the 1930s and 1940s, as well as in opera and on the concert stage, radio, television, and in nightclubs. A classically trained baritone, he is best remembered for the eight films in which he costarred with soprano Jeanette MacDonald. He was one of the first "crossover" stars, a superstar appealing both to shrieking bobby soxerss and opera purists, and in his heyday, he was the highest paid singer in the world.
Go to Profile#16907
Johnny Richards
1911 - 1968 (57 years)
Johnny Richards was an American jazz arranger and composer scoring numerous sound tracks for television and film. He was a pivotal composer/arranger for cutting edge, adventurous performances and recording sessions by Stan Kenton's big band in the 1950s and early 1960s; such as Cuban Fire!, Kenton's West Side Story and Adventures in Time.
Go to Profile#16908
Paolo Stoppa
1906 - 1988 (82 years)
Paolo Stoppa was an Italian actor. Biography Born in Rome, he began as a stage actor in 1927 in the theater in Rome and began acting in films in 1932. As a stage actor, his most celebrated works include those after World War II, when he met director Luchino Visconti: the two, together with Stoppa's wife, actress Rina Morelli, formed a trio whose adaptations of works by authors such as Chekhov, Shakespeare and Goldoni became highly acclaimed. He gave to the theater a personal touch with his energetic play.
Go to Profile#16909
Sergio Franchi
1926 - 1990 (64 years)
Sergio Franchi was an Italian-American tenor and actor who enjoyed success in the United States and internationally after gaining notice in Britain in the early 1960s. In 1962, RCA Victor signed him to a seven-year contract and in October of that year Franchi appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show and performed at Carnegie Hall. Sol Hurok managed Franchi's initial American concert tour.
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Colin McPhee
1900 - 1964 (64 years)
Colin Carhart McPhee was a Canadian-American composer and ethnomusicologist. He is best known for being the first Western composer to make a musicological study of Bali, and developing American gamelan along with fellow composer Lou Harrison. He wrote original music influenced by that of Bali and Java, decades before such compositions that were based on world music became widespread.
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William Lewis Barrett
1847 - 1927 (80 years)
William Lewis Barrett, also W. Lewis Barrett, was a professional flautist and music teacher. Early life and education Barrett was born on 4 January 1847 in London. His parents were Mary and Thomas Barrett, a violinist. His mother was from Dinas Mawddwy, Wales, where he began his education. Barrett then was schooled in Cemmes, Montgomeryshire. He learned to play the flute and violin, having studied the flute under Richard Shepherd Rockstro.
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Edward Howard House
1836 - 1901 (65 years)
Edward Howard House was an American journalist who wrote for the New York Tribune and later founded the Japan-based English-language newspaper Tokio Times. Career He was born in Boston to engraver Timothy House and his wife, a pianist. House composed an orchestral piece at the age of fourteen, and four years later began writing for the Boston Courier as the publication's music and drama critic. House also worked as a banknote engraver. In 1858, he left the Courier for Horace Greeley's New York Tribune. In 1859, he reported for the Tribune, under an assumed name, with phony credentials, and at considerable personal risk, on John Brown's trial, Virginia v.
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Eugene Biel-Bienne
1902 - 1969 (67 years)
Eugene Biel-Bienne was an Austrian-born American painter. Biography Early life Eugene Biel-Bienne was born as Egon V. Biel on November 27, 1902, in Vienna, Austria. His father served as the Austrian Ambassador to Japan. He was raised as a Catholic. He was educated at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, the University of Vienna and the University of Cologne, where he received a PhD in Art History.
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Angus Matheson
1912 - 1962 (50 years)
Angus Matheson was the inaugural Professor of Celtic Languages and Literature at the University of Glasgow, a post he held from 1956 until his death in 1962. Early life Angus Matheson was born 1 July 1912 in Harris in the Outer Hebrides to Mary Murray from Lewis and Malcolm Matheson, a minister in the United Free Church. He grew up in Sollas, North Uist. His elder brother was the Gaelic scholar William Matheson, an ordained minister and Reader in Celtic at the University of Edinburgh.
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David Popper
1843 - 1913 (70 years)
David Popper was a Bohemian cellist and composer. Life Popper was born in Prague, and studied music at the Prague Conservatory. His family was Jewish. He studied the cello under Julius Goltermann , and soon attracted attention. He made his first tour in 1863; in Germany he was praised by Hans von Bülow, son-in-law of Franz Liszt, who recommended him as Chamber Virtuoso in the court of Prince von Hohenzollern-Hechingen in Löwenberg. In 1864, he premiered Robert Volkmann's Cello Concerto in A minor, Op. 33, with Hans von Bülow conducting the Berlin Philharmonic. He lost this job a couple of yea...
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Charles R. Brewer
1890 - 1971 (81 years)
Dr. Charles Richard Brewer was a notable professor, preacher, poet, and leader for the churches of Christ. Born in near Gimlet Creek in Giles County, Tennessee, Brewer's career included many publications, television and radio shows, and a reputation for biblical learning. His funeral in Nashville, TN, was attended by some 3,000 people. Brewer was named "Speaker of the Year" in his final year and eventually a "Lipscomb Legend" by the university. He was scheduled to speak at Pepperdine University, in April of his last year, where he was to receive the school's annual Most Distinguished Service Award.
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Anthony Lewis
1915 - 1983 (68 years)
Sir Anthony Carey Lewis was an English musicologist, conductor, composer, and music educator. He co-founded and served as the first chief editor of Musica Britannica, producing scholarly editions of British music hitherto unavailable. He published critical editions of operas by Handel, Purcell and John Blow.
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Theodor Becker
1880 - 1952 (72 years)
Theodor Becker was a German stage and film actor. He was married to Maria Fein and was the father of Maria Becker. Becker acted mostly at the Niedersächsisches Staatstheater Hannover but also appeared on the Berlin stage as well as in a number of silent films.
Go to Profile#16919
Joseph Haas
1879 - 1960 (81 years)
Joseph Haas was a German late romantic composer and music teacher. Biography He was born in Maihingen, near Nördlingen to teacher Alban Haas from his second marriage, being half-brother to the theologian and historian Alban Haas. At an early age he came into contact with music. He became a teacher himself and taught from 1897 to 1904 in Lauingen near the Danube.
Go to ProfilePapirius Fabianus was an Ancient Roman rhetorician and philosopher from the gens Papirius in the time of Tiberius and Caligula, in the first half of the 1st century AD. Biography Fabianus was the pupil of Arellius Fuscus and of Blandus in rhetoric, and of Quintus Sextius in philosophy. Although much the younger of the two, he instructed Gaius Albucius Silus in eloquence. The rhetorical style of Fabianus is described by Seneca the Elder, and he is frequently cited in the third book of Controversiae as well as in the Suasoriae. His early model in rhetoric was his instructor Arellius Fuscus; but ...
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Eddie Edwards
1891 - 1963 (72 years)
Edwin Branford Edwards was an early jazz trombonist who was a member of the Original Dixieland Jass Band. Life and career A native of New Orleans, Louisiana, Edwards started on violin at age 10 and moved to trombone five years later. He played both instruments professionally with the bands of Papa Jack Laine and Ernest Giardina. In addition to music, Edwards played minor-league baseball and worked as an electrician.
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Fannie Charles Dillon
1881 - 1947 (66 years)
Fannie Charles Dillon was an American pianist, music educator and composer. Life Fannie Charles Dillon was born in Denver, Colorado in 1881. She moved with her family to Long Beach, California in 1890. She graduated from Pomona College and studied composition with Heinrich Urban, Hugo Kaun and Rubin Goldmark, and piano with Leopold Godowsky in Berlin.
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Helen Twelvetrees
1908 - 1958 (50 years)
Helen Marie Twelvetrees was an American actress. She starred in Hollywood films in the sound film era from 1929 to 1939. Many of her roles were of "suffering women". She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Go to Profile#16924
Rubin Goldmark
1872 - 1936 (64 years)
Rubin Goldmark was an American composer, pianist, and educator. Although in his time he was an often-performed American nationalist composer, his works are seldom played now. Today he is best known as the teacher of other important composers, including Aaron Copland and George Gershwin.
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Eva Fiesel
1891 - 1937 (46 years)
Eva Fiesel, née Lehmann , was a German linguist and scholar of Etruscan. Life Her father Karl Lehmann was Professor of Law and Rector of the University of Rostock from 1904 to 1905, and from 1911 in Göttingen. Her mother was the painter Henni Lehmann, and her brother Karl Leo Heinrich Lehmann became a well-known archaeologist. In 1915 she married Ludolf Fiesel, a lecturer at Rostock, in Göttingen. In the winter semester of 1916–17 she enrolled at the University of Rostock.
Go to Profile#16926
Cat Anderson
1916 - 1981 (65 years)
William Alonzo "Cat" Anderson was an American jazz trumpeter known for his long period as a member of Duke Ellington's orchestra and for his wide range, especially his ability to play in the altissimo register.
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Lew Landers
1901 - 1962 (61 years)
Lew Landers was an American independent film and television director. Biography Born as Louis Friedlander in New York City, Lew Landers began his movie career as an actor. In 1914, he appeared in two features: D.W. Griffith's drama The Escape and the comedy short Admission – Two Pins, under his birth name. He became an assistant director at Universal Pictures in 1922. He began making films in the 1930s, one of his early ones being the Boris Karloff / Bela Lugosi thriller The Raven . After directing a few more features, he changed his name to Lew Landers and directed more than 100 films in a variety of genres, including Westerns, comedies, and horror movies.
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Major Holley
1924 - 1990 (66 years)
Major "Mule" Holley Jr. was an American jazz upright bassist. Early life and education Holley was born in Detroit, Michigan, United States. He attended the prestigious Cass Technical High School in Detroit. Holley played violin and tuba when young.
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Seth Bingham
1882 - 1972 (90 years)
Seth Daniels Bingham was an American organist and prolific composer. Biography Bingham was born in Bloomfield, New Jersey, the youngest of four siblings in a farming family that soon relocated to Naugatuck, Connecticut. After extensive childhood activities in church music, he studied organ and composition with Harry Benjamin Jepson and Horatio Parker at Yale University, gaining a B.A. in 1904. Taking time also to study in Paris with Alexandre Guilmant, Vincent d'Indy and Charles-Marie Widor, Bingham earned his B.Mus. from Yale in 1908, and subsequently taught theory, composition and organ at Yale from 1908 to 1919.
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Lenny Breau
1941 - 1984 (43 years)
Leonard Harold Breau was an American-Canadian guitarist. He blended many styles of music, including jazz, country, classical, and flamenco. Inspired by country guitarists like Chet Atkins, Breau used fingerstyle techniques not often used in jazz guitar. By using a seven-string guitar and approaching the guitar like a piano, he opened up possibilities for the instrument.
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Paul Howard
1895 - 1980 (85 years)
Paul Leroy "Ox Blood" Howard was an American jazz saxophonist and clarinetist. Early life Howard was born in Steubenville, Ohio on September 20, 1895. He began on cornet, and also played oboe, bassoon, flute, and piano, but concentrated on tenor sax.
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John Sebastian
1914 - 1980 (66 years)
John Sebastian was an American musician and composer known as a master of the classical chromatic harmonica. He was the first harmonicist to adopt an all-classical repertoire and, along with Larry Adler and Tommy Reilly, established the harmonica as a serious instrument for classical music. In addition to performing, Sebastian increased the range of classical music available for the harmonica by transcribing numerous existing classical works for the harmonica, composing works of his own, and commissioning or otherwise encouraging other composers to write for the instrument.
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Mary Kornman
1915 - 1973 (58 years)
Mary Kornman was an American child actress who was the leading female star of the Our Gang series during the Pathé silent era. Our Gang She was born as Mary Agnes Evans, the daughter of Verna Comer, who appeared in several films, and David Lionel Evans. Her stepfather, Hal Roach′s still-photo cameraman Eugene Kornman, adopted Mary after he and Mary's mother were married in 1921. After Peggy Cartwright, who appeared in only four or five Our Gang episodes, Mary became the leading lady of the series, appearing in more than 40 episodes. Kornman was one of the series′ biggest stars during its early years between 1922 and 1926.
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Edward LeSaint
1870 - 1940 (70 years)
Edward LeSaint was an American stage and film actor and director whose career began in the silent era. He acted in over 300 films and directed more than 90. He was sometimes credited as Edward J. Le Saint.
Go to Profile#16935
Luis Mariano
1914 - 1970 (56 years)
Luis Mariano Eusebio González García , also known as Luis Mariano, was a popular tenor of Spanish origin who achieved celebrity in 1946 with "La belle de Cadix" an operetta by Francis Lopez. He appeared in the 1954 film Adventures of the Barber of Seville and Le Chanteur de Mexico and became popular in France as well as his native Spain.
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Xenarchus of Seleucia
Xenarchus of Seleucia in Cilicia, was a Greek Peripatetic philosopher and grammarian. Xenarchus left home early, and devoted himself to the profession of teaching, first at Alexandria, afterwards at Athens, and last at Rome, where he enjoyed the friendship of Arius, and afterwards of Augustus; and he was still living, in old age and honour, when Strabo wrote. Xenarchus disagreed with Aristotle on many issues. He denied the existence of the aether, composing a treatise entitled Against the Fifth Element. He is also mentioned by Simplicius, by Julian the Apostate, and by Alexander of Aphrodisia...
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Lev Arnshtam
1905 - 1979 (74 years)
Lev Oskarovich Arnshtam was a Soviet film director and screenwriter. He directed nine films between 1936 and 1967. Arnshtam was named People's Artist of the RSFSR in 1969. Biography Arnshtam was initially interested in music. He studied piano at Saint Petersburg Conservatory, graduating in 1923, and began a career as a professional pianist. He worked as the chief musical consultant for Vsevolod Meyerhold's theater in 1924–1927, before turning to cinema, where he became an expert in sound engineering. From 1929 to 1931, Arnshtam helped develop a sound track for Sergei Yutkevich's Golden Mounta...
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Alfred Hill
1869 - 1960 (91 years)
Alfred Francis Hill CMG OBE was an Australian-New Zealand composer, conductor and teacher. Life and work Alfred Hill was born in Melbourne in 1869. His year of birth is shown in many sources as 1870, but this has now been disproven. He spent most of his early life in Wellington. He studied at the Leipzig Conservatory between 1887 and 1891 under Gustav Schreck, Hans Sitt and Oscar Paul. Later he played second violin with the Gewandhaus Orchestra, under guest conductors including Brahms, Grieg, Tchaikovsky, Bruch, and Reinecke. While there, some of his compositions were played with fellow students, and several were published in Germany.
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Benjamin Dale
1885 - 1943 (58 years)
Benjamin James Dale was an English composer and academic who had a long association with the Royal Academy of Music. Dale showed compositional talent from an early age and went on to write a small but notable corpus of works. His best-known composition is probably the large-scale Piano Sonata in D minor he started while still a student at the Royal Academy of Music, which communicates in a potent late romantic style. Christopher Foreman has proposed a comprehensive reassessment of Benjamin Dale's music. Dale married one of his students, the pianist and composer Kathleen Richards in 1921.
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Arnett Cobb
1918 - 1989 (71 years)
Arnett Cleophus Cobb was an American tenor saxophonist, sometimes known as the "Wild Man of the Tenor Sax" because of his uninhibited stomping style. Cobb wrote the words and music for the jazz standard "Smooth Sailing" , which Ella Fitzgerald recorded for Decca on her album Lullabies of Birdland.
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Alexander Gauk
1893 - 1963 (70 years)
Alexander Vassilievich Gauk was a Soviet conductor and composer. Biography Alexander Gauk was born in Odessa in 1893. He recalled his first experience as hearing army bands and his mother singing and accompanying herself at the piano. When he was seven he began piano studies and at 17 travelled to St. Petersburg and managed to gain entrance to the class of Daugover, later moving over to Felix Blumenfeld. He saw Arthur Nikisch, Claude Debussy, and Richard Strauss conduct and was particularly taken with Nikisch.
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William Walker
1809 - 1875 (66 years)
William Walker was an American Baptist song leader, shape note "singing master", and compiler of four shape note tunebooks, most notable of which are the influential The Southern Harmony and The Christian Harmony, which has been in continuous use .
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John Fraser
1882 - 1945 (63 years)
John Fraser was Jesus Professor of Celtic at the University of Oxford. Life He was born in Inverness, Scotland, and studied at the University of Aberdeen, Trinity College, Cambridge and the University of Jena. After lecturing in Celtic at Aberdeen University, he was appointed Jesus Professor of Celtic in 1921, becoming thereby a Professorial Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford. He held the position until his death in 1945.
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Marius Plamondon
1914 - 1976 (62 years)
Marius Plamondon was a Canadian sculptor and stained glass artist who made a significant contribution to the revival of the art of stained glass in Quebec during his lifetime. His most famous work is the set of ten stained glass windows he made for Saint Joseph's Oratory, Montreal.
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Miloje Milojević
1884 - 1946 (62 years)
Miloje Milojević was a Serbian composer, musicologist, music critic, folklorist, music pedagogue, and music promoter. Biography The father of Miloje Milojević, Dimitrije, an apparel merchant, was born in the village Dedina near the town of Kruševac. His last name was in fact Đorđević, but according to the custom at the time, he adopted a surname based on his father's first name. Dimitrije Milojević was rather musically gifted, being self-taught in playing the flute. The mother of Miloje Milojević, Angelina, was born in Belgrade, in the Matić clerk's family. She was also musically gifted and took private piano lessons.
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John Powell
1882 - 1963 (81 years)
John Powell was an American pianist, ethnomusicologist and composer. Along with Annabel Morris Buchanan, he helped found the White Top Folk Festival, which promoted music of the people in the Appalachian Mountains. A firm believer in segregation and white supremacy, Powell also helped found the Anglo-Saxon Clubs of America, which soon had numerous posts in Virginia. He contributed to the drafting and passage of the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, which institutionalized the one-drop rule by classifying as black anyone with African ancestry.
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Willie Best
1916 - 1962 (46 years)
William Best , known professionally as Willie Best or Sleep n' Eat, was an American television and film actor. Best was one of the first African American film actors and comedians to become well known. In the 21st century, his work, like that of Stepin Fetchit, is sometimes reviled because he was often called upon to play stereotypically lazy, illiterate, and/or simple-minded characters in films. Of the 124 films he appeared in, he received screen credit in at least 77, an unusual feat for an African American bit player.
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Johannes Paul Thilman
1906 - 1973 (67 years)
Johannes Paul Thilman was a German composer. Life Thilman, who actually wanted to become a teacher, encountered music at the age of 18 and taught himself initially. After a private lesson with Paul Hindemith and Hermann Scherchen, he attended the Leipzig Conservatory in 1929 and studied Composition with Hermann Grabner. The first performances of his works took place after he finished his studies in 1931. They were performed in Donaueschingen by his teacher, Hindemith. In the year 1940, he became the instructor of composition at the "Carl Maria von Weber" School of Music in his hometown, Dresden.
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Elisabeth Risdon
1887 - 1958 (71 years)
Elisabeth Risdon was an English film actress. She appeared in more than 140 films from 1913 to 1952. A beauty in her youth, she usually played in society parts. In later years in films she switched to playing character parts.
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Ethel Waters
1896 - 1977 (81 years)
Ethel Waters was an American singer and actress. Waters frequently performed jazz, swing, and pop music on the Broadway stage and in concerts. She began her career in the 1920s singing blues. Her notable recordings include "Dinah", "Stormy Weather", "Taking a Chance on Love", "Heat Wave", "Supper Time", "Am I Blue?", "Cabin in the Sky", "I'm Coming Virginia", and her version of "His Eye Is on the Sparrow". Waters was the second African American to be nominated for an Academy Award, the first African American to star on her own television show, and the first African-American woman to be nomina...
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