Forest Lawn Cathedral City
The men and women are interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Cathedral City, Riverside County, California.
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- Linda Christian was born Blanca Rosa Welter, to a Dutch father, Gerardus Jacob Welter, and a Mexican-born mother, Blanca Rosa Vorhauer. Her Father was an executive with Royal Dutch Shell and Christian traveled extensively as a result living in South Africa, Romania, Germany, France, Switzerland, England, and Palestine at various times during her childhood This was beneficial in that the little girl - a very good pupil at school - eventually was able to speak seven languages. She also turned into a shapely young lady who won a beauty contest. She started studying medicine in Palestine but had to be repatriated to the USA due to the international situation. She landed in Los Angeles and naturally considered a movie career there. She studied drama but got only minor parts for years. She really became famous when she married Tyrone Power, and her career somewhat improved. But it is scandal more than her film roles that long made her a favorite of the celebrity press rather than of specialized movie magazines.
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Frantisek Daniel was born on 14 April 1926 in Kolin, Czech Republic. He was a writer, known for Hledá se táta (1961), Letos v zari (1963) and O vecech nadprirozených (1959). He died on 28 February 1996 in Palm Springs, California, USA.Plot: San. of Good Shepard South, #8, D- Vicki Draves was born on 18 August 1945 in Los Angeles, California, USA. She was an actress, known for The Trouble with Angels (1966), Karen (1964) and The Munsters (1964). She was married to Lawrence Mole Parker. She died on 16 March 1995 in Toluca Lake, California, USA.Plot: Mission Santa Rosa West Exterior, Niche 17
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As A&E's Biography put it, "She rose from the mean streets of New York's Hell's Kitchen to become the most famous singing actress in the world. When the pressures of fame became too much, she had the courage to leave Hollywood on her own terms". Alice Faye was born Alice Jeanne Leppert in NYC on May 5, 1915. She was to become one of Hollywood's biggest stars of the late 1930s and early 1940s. She started her career as a singer, but later gravitated to film roles. Alice's first role was in the film George White's Scandals (1934) in 1934 where she played "Mona Vale". Lilian Harvey was set to play the lead role in this film, but quit. Alice inherited the part. She went on to star in Tinseltown's popular and lucrative cookie-cutter musicals and, with her distinctive contralto, introduced several songs that became pop standards, notably "You'll Never Know" in the film Hello Frisco, Hello (1943) in 1943.
After filming Fallen Angel (1945) in 1945, in which she was very disappointed because many of her best scenes were cut, she walked out on her contract. Her life after Hollywood was charmingly simple. She was married to Hoosier Phil Harris from 1941-1995 in a union that produced two daughters. She had previously been married to Tony Martin for four years. Alice had always said that her family always came before her professional life. She went back to Hollywood to make State Fair (1962) in 1962. At that time, she said "I don't know what happened to the picture business. I'm sorry I went back to find out. Such a shame". Her last film was The Magic of Lassie (1978) in 1978 opposite James Stewart. Most of her films are big hits at revival theaters across the country, confirming the power she had in the wonderful performances she gave. Ironically, Alice is more popular in Britain than in the US. Four days after her birthday on May 9, 1998, Alice Faye died in Rancho Mirage, California. She was 83 years old.- Actress
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London-born actress, daughter of the King's Counsel, St. John Field, educated in Paris and Vienna. Her mother, a cousin of famous Confederate General Robert E. Lee, chose the name "Virginia" as homage to Lee's beloved home state. Virginia also had an actress aunt, Auriol Lee, who paved the way for her debut on the stage. She first appeared in "This Side Idolatry" in 1933 (with Leslie Howard). She was later signed by 20th Century Fox (actually by standing in at a screen test as a favour to another actress), but was quickly typecast as the "other woman" or as perfunctory second fiddle to "Charlie Chan" and "Mr. Moto". She had greater success on Broadway, where she starred in the screwball comedy "The Doughgirls" (1942) at the Lyceum Theatre, and the Moss Hart farce "Light Up the Sky" (1948), with Sam Levene, Barry Nelson and Glenn Anders.- Music Department
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Songwriter ("Green Eyes", "Waiting for the Robert E. Lee", "Ramona", "The Peanut Vendor"), author and publisher who came to the US in 1887 and was educated in local public schools, and then became a singer in amateur-night contests, and later a vaudeville and cafe entertainer. He toured with John L. Sullivan. Coming to Hollywood in 1929, he wrote for films, and the Eddie Cantor radio show, then made many apppearances on radio and television, and formed his own publishing firm in California. He joined ASCAP in 1924, and was an ASCAP director between 1941-1944 and again in 1953. His musical collaborators included Lewis Muir, Mabel Wayne, Abel Baer, Ben Oakland, Jay Gorney, Nat Shilkret, Richard Fall, and Anatole Friedland. His other popular-song compositions include "Mama Don't Want No Peas and Rice and Coconut Oil", "Shades of Night", "La Golondrina", "Lucky Lindy", "Don't Wake Me Up, Let Me Dream", "My Little Dream Girl", "Hitchy Koo", "Mammy Jinny's Jubilee", "My Sweet Adair", "Take Me to That Swanee Shore", "My Own Iona", "Jeannine, I Dream of Lilac Time", "Mama Inez", "Oh Katharina", "I Miss My Swiss", "Marta", "By Heck", "Hopalong Cassidy March", "Chimes of Spring", "My Mother's Eyes", "Down Yonder", "Maria My Own (Maria La O)", "Lily of the Valley", "The Right Kind of Man", "If You Believed in Me", "Forever and a Day", "African Lament (Lamento Africano)", "Here Comes My Daddy Now", "Are You From Heaven?", "I Love You - That's One Thing I Know", "In the Land of Make Believe", "No One Can Take Your Place", "Astronaut of Space", I Laughed at Love", "A-Weepin' and a-Wailin' Song" and "Chiquita".- Composer
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Rock Hudson was born Roy Harold Scherer, Jr. in Winnetka, Illinois, to Katherine (Wood), a telephone operator, and Roy Harold Scherer, an auto mechanic. He was of German, Swiss-German, English, and Irish descent. His parents divorced when he was eight years old. He failed to obtain parts in school plays because he couldn't remember lines. After high school he was a postal employee and during WW II served as a Navy airplane mechanic. After the war he was a truck driver. His size and good looks got him into movies. His name was changed to Rock Hudson, his teeth were capped, he took lessons in acting, singing, fencing and riding. One line in his first picture, Fighter Squadron (1948), needed 38 takes. In 1956 he received an Oscar nomination for Giant (1956) and two years later Look magazine named him Star of the Year. He starred in a number of bedroom comedies, many with Doris Day, and had his own popular TV series McMillan & Wife (1971). He had a recurring role in TV's Dynasty (1981) (1984-5). He was the first major public figure to announce he had AIDS, and his worldwide search for a cure drew international attention. After his death his long-time lover Marc Christian successfully sued his estate, again calling attention to the homosexuality Rock had hidden from most throughout his career.Plot: Tower of Memories- Elisabeth Brooks Luyties was born on July 2, 1951 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Elisabeth Brooks began acting at age five with her career encompassing both stage and screen. She started appearing in television roles in the mid-1970s and managed to pursue her acting career as a single mother while working a variety of jobs to support herself and her son. She regularly appeared on the daytime soap opera Days of Our Lives (1965), and in such popular television series as The Rockford Files (1974), Hart to Hart (1979), Starsky and Hutch (1975), The Six Million Dollar Man (1974) and Emergency! (1972). She is probably best remembered for her role as the villainess Marsha Quist in the horror film The Howling (1981), a role that brought her considerable notoriety within the genre.
Brooks was not only a beautiful actress, but also an accomplished writer, poet and musician. She had a wonderful deep, sultry voice and can be heard singing briefly in the film The Forgotten One (1989) - a horror film she appeared with longtime friend Kristy McNichol. She and McNichol had separated, but McNichol came back to care for Brooks on her final days. Brooks was also known for her spirituality and her encouragement to others. She created her own production company and became an established acting coach. She wrote and produced plays that taught children about the environment, and how they could work with parents to improve their community. An example of this was "Orphan Dreams", which she directed first at Calabasas High School and again at Chamber Theatre in Studio City.
Elisabeth Brooks, after a three-year struggle with cancer, died in a hospice near her Palm Springs, California home at age 46. As Gigi Bannister wrote in a Tribute to Elisabeth Brooks, "let it be said, Elisabeth Brooks was no quitter. She was a fighter... a true warrior to the end".Plot: Tranquility Falls South Section, Lot #0, Space #8 (Niche) - Actor
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Handsome American leading man Guy Madison stumbled into a film career and became a television star and hero to the Baby Boom generation. As a young man he worked as a telephone lineman, but entered the Coast Guard at the beginning of the Second World War. While on liberty one weekend in Hollywood, he attended a Lux Radio Theatre broadcast and was spotted in the audience by an assistant to Henry Willson, an executive for David O. Selznick. Selznick wanted an unknown sailor to play a small but prominent part in Since You Went Away (1944), and promptly signed Robert Moseley to a contract. Selznick and Willson concocted the screen name Guy Madison (the "guy" girls would like to meet, and Madison from a passing Dolly Madison cake wagon). Madison filmed his one scene on a weekend pass and returned to duty. The film's release brought thousands of fan letters for Madison's lonely, strikingly handsome young sailor, and at war's end he returned to find himself a star-in-the-making. Despite an initial amateurishness to his acting, Madison grew as a performer, studying and working in theatre. He played leads in a series of programmers before being cast as legendary lawman Wild Bill Hickok in the TV series Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok (1951). He played Hickok on TV and radio for much of the 1950s, and many of the TV episodes were strung together and released as feature films. Madison managed to squeeze in some more adult-oriented roles during his off-time from the series, but much of this work was also in westerns. After the Hickok series ended Madison found work scarce in the U.S. and traveled to Europe, where he became a popular star of Italian westerns and German adventure films. In the 1970s he returned to the U.S., but appeared mainly in cameo roles. Physical ailments limited his work in later years, and he died from emphysema in 1996. His first wife was actress Gail Russell.- Actor
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George Montgomery was boxing champion at the University of Montana where he majored in architecture and interior design. Dropping out a year later he decided to take up boxing more seriously. He moved to California where he was coached by ex-heavyweight world champion James J. Jeffries. While in Hollywood, he came to the attention of the studios (not least, because he was an expert rider) and was hired as a stuntman in 1935. After doing this for four years, George was offered a contract at 20th Century Fox in 1939, but found himself largely confined to leads in B-westerns. He did not secure a part in anything even remotely like a prestige picture until his co-starring role in Roxie Hart (1942), opposite Ginger Rogers. Next, in Orchestra Wives (1942), he played the perfunctory love interest for Ann Rutherford, though both, inevitably, ended up playing second trombone to Glenn Miller and His Orchestra.
In 1947, George got his first serious break, being cast as Raymond Chandler's private eye Philip Marlowe in The Brasher Doubloon (1947). Reviewers, however, compared his performance unfavorably with that of Humphrey Bogart and found the film "pallid" overall. So it was back in the saddle for George. Unable to shake his image as a cowboy actor he starred in scores of films with titles like Belle Starr's Daughter (1948), Dakota Lil (1950), Jack McCall, Desperado (1953), and Masterson of Kansas (1954) at Columbia, and for producer Edward Small at United Artists. When not cleaning up the Wild West with his six-shooter, he branched out into adventure films set in exotic locales (notably as Harry Quartermain in Watusi (1959)). During the 60s, he also wrote, directed and starred in several long-forgotten, low-budget wartime potboilers made in the Philippines.
At the height of his popularity, George attracted as much publicity for his acting as for his liaisons with glamorous stars, like Ginger Rogers, Hedy Lamarr (to whom he was briefly engaged) and singer Dinah Shore (whom he married in 1943). After his retirement from the film business, he devoted himself to his love of painting, furniture-making and sculpting bronze busts, including one of his close friend Ronald Reagan.- Actor
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Born in Pasadena, California, George Nader became interested in acting while still in school and appeared in several productions at the Pasadena Playhouse. This led to several small parts in movies before earning the lead role in the ridiculous 3-D thriller Robot Monster (1953). The movie was bad but profitable, and Nader soon had a contract with Universal Pictures. Unfortunately, the studio already had on its roster such good-looking and athletic actors as Rock Hudson, Tony Curtis and Jeff Chandler, so Nader often found himself being cast in their leftovers, usually playing parts that emphasized his "beefcake" appeal. (At 6' 1" and 180 pounds, Nader had the kind of physique fan magazines drooled over and unlike many of his colleagues, he frequently appeared with his chest hair intact.) However, he did enjoy a few good years in the mid-1950s, turning in a commendable performance in Away All Boats (1956) before his career began to decline. He tried his hand at three TV series and then relocated to Europe, where he enjoyed a modest revival in the late 1960s starring as "Jerry Cotton" in a series of West German films.cenotaph- Composer
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John Phillips was born on 30 August 1935 in Parris Island, South Carolina, USA. He was a composer and producer, known for Cocktail (1988), The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) and The Rock (1996). He was married to Farnaz Arasteh, Geneviève Waïte, Michelle Phillips and Suzy Phillips-January. He died on 18 March 2001 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Plot: Faith & Hope, Crypt 12E, Space A- Luce Potter was born on 15 December 1914 in Chihuahua, Mexico. She was an actress, known for The Great Gildersleeve (1954). She was married to Edwin "Midge" Potter. She died on 21 November 2005 in Rancho Mirage, California, USA.
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Harold Robbins summed up his career best in a 1971 ITV documentary: "I'm the world's best writer--there's nothing more to say". This phenomenally successful author--over 750,000,000 copies of his books were sold worldwide, and most were adapted successfully for the screen. At fifteen, he left home to begin a series of low-paying jobs, including working as a numbers runner. At twenty, after buying options on farmers' produce, Robbins was a millionaire, but a move into sugar futures wiped him out. He next took a job as a shipping clerk with Universal Pictures warehouse in New York and was soon promoted to executive director for budget and planning. On a bet with a studio executive, Robbins wrote his personal favorite novel, Never Love a Stranger (Knopf, 1948), and other early works which achieved minor critical success. He soon devolved into a writer of more popular novels involving celebrity, sex, and violence, to the scorn of critics. His writings after 1960 reflected his personal life: six marriages, wild Hollywood parties, drug abuse. A stroke in 1982 left him with aphasia, although he continued to write, publishing his last novel, Tycoon, in 1997.- Irv Robbins is known for Beyond the Ocean (2000).Plot: Serenity Chapel, North Crypt, 3B
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"America's Boyfriend" Buddy Rogers was born in Olathe Kansas and became a talented musician on several instruments. He began acting in Hollywood in the 1920's and is probably best remembered as Clara Bow's love interest in "Wings". He also made several appearances in the "Mexican Spitfire" series with Lupe Velez, as well as being the nominal bandleader for several radio shows. He was married to Mary Pickford for forty-two years, until her death, and adopted two children. He appeared as a secondary character in scores of movies, and later became a frequent guest star on TV. Rogers died at age ninety-two in California. NOTE: The Charles Rogers whose biography also appears in this section is that of "Charley Rogers" a comedian and gagman for Hal Roach in the '20's and '30's. He is not the same Charles Rogers whose information is listed here.- Actress
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Her real name was Frances "Fanny" Rose Shore, and she was born in Winchester, Tennessee. Stricken with polio at 18 months of age, she recovered after receiving the Sister Kenny treatment. She became a cheerleader at Hume-Fogg High School in Nashville and went on to graduate from Vanderbilt University in 1938, where she majored in sociology. She took voice and acting lessons on the side and sang on radio station WSM in Nashville. In 1938 she left Tennessee for New York City and began singing on radio station WNCW in New York. Her first recordings were with bandleader Xavier Cugat, and she later changed her named to Dinah after her success with the song of the same name. She received numerous Emmy awards for television specials and productions and appeared in many films. She was married to actor George Montgomery, with whom she had one daughter and adopted a son.Plot: Columbarium, Serenity Chapel- Actress
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Jane Wyman was born Sarah Jane Mayfield on January 5, 1917, in St. Joseph, Missouri (she was also known later as Sarah Jane Fulks). When she was only eight years old, and after her parents filed for divorce, she lost her father prematurely. After graduating high school she attempted, with the help of her mother, to break into films, but to no avail. In 1935, after attending the University of Missouri, she began a career as a radio singer, which led to her first name change to Jane Durrell. In 1936 she signed a contract with Warner Bros. Pictures and that led to another name change, the more familiar one of Jane Wyman. Under that name she appeared in "A" and "B" pictures at Warners, including two with her future husband, Ronald Reagan: Brother Rat (1938) and its sequel, Brother Rat and a Baby (1940). In the early 1940s she moved into comedies and melodramas and gained attention for her role as Ray Milland's long-suffering girlfriend in The Lost Weekend (1945). The following year she was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for her role as Ma Baxter in The Yearling (1946), and won the coveted prize in 1949 as deaf-mute rape victim Belinda MacDonald in Johnny Belinda (1948). She followed that with a number of appearances in more prestigious films, such as Alfred Hitchcock's Stage Fright (1950), Frank Capra's Here Comes the Groom (1951), Michael Curtiz's The Story of Will Rogers (1952) and the first movie version of The Glass Menagerie (1950). She starred opposite Bing Crosby in the musical Just for You (1952). She was Oscar-nominated for her performances in The Blue Veil (1951) and Magnificent Obsession (1954). She also starred in the immensely popular So Big (1953), Lucy Gallant (1955), All That Heaven Allows (1955) and Miracle in the Rain (1956). In addition to her extensive film career, she hosted TV's Jane Wyman Presents the Fireside Theatre (1955) and starred in most of the episodes of the show, which ran for three seasons. She came back to the big screen in Holiday for Lovers (1959), Pollyanna (1960) and her final film, How to Commit Marriage (1969). Although off the big screen, she became a presence on the small screen and starred in two made-for-TV movies, including The Incredible Journey of Doctor Meg Laurel (1979). In early 1981, in the 49th year of her career, she won the role of conniving matriarch Angela Channing Erikson Stavros Agretti in the movie "The Vintage Years", which was the unaired pilot for the prime-time soap opera Falcon Crest (1981), later in the year. For nine seasons she played that character in a way that virtually no other actress could have done, and became the moral center of the show. The show was a ratings winner from its debut in 1981, and made stars out of her fellow cast members Robert Foxworth, Lorenzo Lamas, Abby Dalton and Susan Sullivan. At the end of the first season the story line had her being informed that her evil son, played by David Selby, had inherited 50% of a California newspaper company, and the conflicts inherent in that situation led to even bigger ratings over the next five years. Wyman was nominated six times for a Soap Opera Digest Award, and in 1984 she won the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a TV Series Drama. By the show's eighth season, however, she was emotionally drained and the strain of constantly working to keep up the quality of a hit show took its toll on her. In addition, there was friction on the set among cast members. All of these events culminated in her departure from the show after the first two episodes of the ninth season (her character was hospitalized and slipped into a coma) for health reasons. After a period of recuperation, she believed that she had recovered enough to guest-star in the last three episodes of the season (her doctor disagreed, but she did it anyway). She then guest-starred as Jane Seymour's mother on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (1993) and three years later appeared in Wild Bill: Hollywood Maverick (1995). In the late 1990s she purchased a home in Rancho Mirage, California, where she lived in retirement. Her daughter, Maureen Reagan (who died in August 2001), was a writer who also involved herself in political issues and organized a powerful foundation. Also, she placed her 3200-sq.-ft. Rancho Mirage condominium on the market. Jane Wyman died at the age of 90, at her Palm Springs, California home, on September 10, 2007, having long suffered from arthritis and diabetes. It was reported that Wyman died in her sleep of natural causes at the Rancho Mirage Country Club.Plot: Mission Santa Rosa, East exterior, Space 5F- Ken Venturi was born on 15 May 1931 in San Francisco, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Tin Cup (1996), PGA Tour Golf on CBS (1970) and The Big Money (1966). He was married to Kathleen, Beau Wheat and Conni Joanne MacLeann. He died on 17 May 2013 in Rancho Mirage, California, USA.
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Jerry Vale was born on 8 July 1930 in The Bronx, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (2000), Casino (1995) and Donnie Brasco (1997). He was married to Rita Grapel. He died on 18 May 2014 in Palm Springs, California, USA.- Patsy Garrett was born on 4 May 1921 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, USA. She was an actress, known for Benji (1974), Nanny and the Professor (1970) and The Parallax View (1974). She was married to Alexander Kokinacis. She died on 8 January 2015 in Indio, California, USA.
- Donald Wexler was born on 23 January 1926 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA. He was married to Nancy Lou Unterman and Marilynn Dawn Maidman. He died on 26 June 2015 in Palm Desert, California, USA.
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Ruth Terry was born Ruth McMahon in Benton Harbor, Michigan, in 1920. She got her start in show business as a child when she would sing with the band in a dance hall where her father worked as a bouncer. She began entering amateur talent contests in the local area, and her beautiful singing voice resulted in her winning many of them. When she was in fourth grade her parents decided that she would embark on a professional singing career, and to that end took her out of school (her education continued with private teachers). She kept winning talent contests, and later became part of a vaudeville act called The Capps Family and Ruthie Mae. She eventually won a spot singing on a Chicago radio station, then she got her own 15-minute time slot on a station in South Bend, Indiana. At 12 years of age she won a contract to sing with a prestigious Chicago musical group, The Paul Ash Chicago Theater Orchestra. After that engagement she went to New York and got a job as a song plugger for composer Irving Berlin, who was a friend of her aunt's. She eventually got her own nightclub act--changing her name to Ruth Terry at the suggestion of gossip columnist Walter Winchell--and soon headed to Miami, where she was engaged to sing at several prestigious nightspots and hotels, and while there she was spotted by talent scouts from 20th Century-Fox. In 1937 she was playing in Chicago with bandleader Ted Lewis when Fox offered her a contract--and all this while she was barely 16 years old.
She was brought to Hollywood by Fox and given diction and acting lessons, and the studio soon put her in her first picture, International Settlement (1938), although she only had one line. She stayed with Fox for two more years, until she was dropped in 1939. In 1940 she was signed by Howard Hughes, who eventually sold her contract to Republic Pictures. It was at Republic where she began making westerns, a genre in which she would spend a lot of time. She made westerns with Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and Robert Livingston, among others. Her contract with Republic ended in 1947, and she made only one other film, for Columbia, before retiring. She soon married, for a second time, and she and her husband moved to Canada. The marriage ended in 1957, and she moved back to the US. In 1962, as a favor to a friend, she did a small part in a low-budget horror film, Hand of Death (1962).- Actress
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Jazz singer Nancy Wilson, a three-time Grammy Award-winner, was born on February 20, 1937 in Chillicothe, Ohio to iron-worker Olden Wilson and the former Lillian Ryan, who worked as a domestic servant. Nancy was the first of six children. Her father's love of music and the records he played at home were a huge influence on Nancy as a young girl. She already knew she would be a singer by the time she was four years old, and developed her talent by singing in the church choir.
She won a TV-talent show when she 15, and began appearing regularly on the Tv show "Skyline Melodies" while still in high school. She began working in night clubs at that same age.
After graduating from high school, the 17-year old Nancy matriculated for one year at Ohio's Central State College (now Central State University) before dropping out and becoming a professional singer. She recorded her first record with Rusty Bryant's Carolyn Club Big Band in 1956, with whom she toured from 1956 to 1958. While in the group, Nancy made her first recording with Dot Records.
Cannonball Adderley told her to move to New York to further her career, and she went to The Big Town in 1959. Within a month, she got a job singing at The Blue Morocco Night Club on Boston Road in The Bronx, where Adderley's agent heard her and signed her. He obtained a contract for with Capitol records in 1960, and she made her debut that year with the single. "Guess Who I Saw Today."
Her records were successful, and Capitol issued five Nancy Wilson albums in two years. Initially focusing on rhythm and blues, under Adderley's influence, she moved away from R&B and embraced jazz and torch songs. Their 1962 collaboration "Nancy Wilson and Cannonball Adderley" helped propel her to the top, and she had her breakout hit, "Tell Me the Truth," in 1963. This brought her a gig at New York's Coconut Grove, the premier night club in America, the following year, and she became a star.
Her 1964 song "(You Don't Know) How Glad I Am" reached #11 on Billboard's Hot 100 singles chart. Eventually, she charted 11 songs in the Hot 100. Nancy also placed four albums in Billboard's Top LP charts between March 1964 and June 1965.
She won her first Grammy in 1964, for best R&B recording for her LP "How Glad I Am." Nancy continued recording into the 21st Century, winning Best Jazz Vocal Grammy Awards for her albums "R.S.V.P. (Rare Songs, Very Personal)" (2005) and "Turned to Blue" (2007). She retired from live performance in 2011.
In addition to singing, Nancy Wilson also is an actress. She made numerous appearances on American TV. She also made a one-off appearance on the BBC with The Nancy Wilson Show (1966) in 1966 that was turned into a soundtrack album.
Nancy was married twice, to drummer Kenny Dennis from 1960-70. They had one child. She married the Presbyterian minister Wiley Burton in 1973. Married 35 years until his death in 2008, they had two children.