Kashmiri Bhatta

Online Chat

Dinah Shore (born Frances Rose Shore; February 29, 1916 – February 24, 1994) was an American singer, actress, and television personality, and the top-charting female vocalist of the 1940s. She rose to prominence as a recording artist during the Big Band era. She achieved even greater success a decade later, in television, mainly as the host of a series of variety programs for the Chevrolet automobile company.

After failing singing auditions for the bands of Benny Goodman, and both Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey, Shore struck out on her own. She became the first singer of her era to achieve huge solo success. She had a string of 80 charted popular hits, spanning 1940–1957, and after appearing in a handful of feature films, she went on to a four-decade career in American television. She starred in her own music and variety shows from 1951 through 1963 and hosted two talk shows in the 1970s. TV Guide ranked her at number 16 on their list of the top 50 television stars of all time. Stylistically, Shore was compared to two singers who followed her in the mid-to-late 1940s and early 1950s, Jo Stafford and Patti Page.

Early life

Frances "Fanny" Rose Shore was born on February 29, 1916, to Russian-Jewish immigrant shopkeepers, Anna (née Stein) and Solomon Shore, in Winchester, Tennessee. She had an elder sister, eight years her senior, Elizabeth, known as "Bessie". When Fanny was eighteen months old, she was stricken with polio (infantile paralysis). The only known treatment was bed rest and sometimes more extreme care if the child was severely compromised. (This was before the polio vaccine had been developed which brought an end to polio in the United States.) Her mother provided extensive care for her, which included regular therapeutic massage and a strict exercise program. She recovered, but sustained a deformed foot and limp. Fanny loved to sing as a small child; her mother, a contralto with operatic aspirations, encouraged her. Her father often took her to his store, where she would perform impromptu songs for the customers.

In 1924, the Shore family moved to McMinnville, Tennessee, where her father had opened a department store. By her fifth-grade year, the family had moved to Nashville, where she completed elementary school. Although shy because of her limp, she became actively involved in sports, was a cheerleader at Nashville's Hume-Fogg High School, and was involved in other activities.

When Shore was 16, her mother died unexpectedly from a heart attack. Pursuing her education, Shore enrolled at Vanderbilt University, where she participated in many events and activities, including the Chi chapter of the Alpha Epsilon Phi sorority. She graduated from the university in 1938 with a degree in sociology.[5] She visited the Grand Ole Opry and made her radio debut on Nashville's WSM radio station.[citation needed]

Shore decided to return to pursuing her career in singing, moving to New York City to audition for orchestras and radio stations. At first she went there on a summer break from Vanderbilt, and after graduation, for good. In many of her auditions, she sang the popular song "Dinah". When disc jockey Martin Block could not remember her name, he called her the "Dinah girl", and soon after the name stuck, becoming her stage name.[6] She eventually was hired as a vocalist at radio station WNEW, where she sang with Frank Sinatra. She recorded and performed with the Xavier Cugat orchestra, and signed a recording contract with RCA Victor Records in 1940.

Marriage and children

Shore was married to actor George Montgomery from 1943 to 1962. She gave birth to daughter Melissa Ann "Missy" Montgomery, in January 1948. Later the couple adopted a son, John David "Jody" Montgomery. Missy Montgomery also became an actress.

George Jacobs, in his memoir Mr. S about Frank Sinatra, for whom he worked as a longtime valet, claimed Shore and Sinatra had a long-standing affair in the 1950s. After her divorce in 1963 from Montgomery, she briefly married professional tennis player Maurice F. Smith.[20] Her romances of the later 1960s involved comedian Dick Martin, singer Eddie Fisher, and actor Rod Taylor.

In the early 1970s, Shore had a happy four-year public romance with actor Burt Reynolds, who was 20 years her junior. After the relationship cooled, the tabloids linked Shore with other younger men, including Wayne Rogers, Andy Williams, and Ron Ely.

Her daughter, Melissa Montgomery, is the owner of the rights to most of Shore's television series. In March 2003, PBS presented MWAH! The Best of The Dinah Shore Show 1956–1963, an hour-long special of early color videotaped footage of Shore in duets with guests Ella Fitzgerald, Jack Lemmon, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Pearl Bailey, George Burns, Groucho Marx, Peggy Lee, and Mahalia Jackson. Black-and-white kinescopes, as well as color videotapes of The Dinah Shore Chevy Show, are frequently aired on Jewish Life Television.

Death

In the spring of 1993, Shore was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She died of complications from the disease at her home in Beverly Hills, California, on February 24, 1994, five days before her 78th birthday. Her body was cremated the same day. Some of the ashes were interred in two memorial sites: the Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery[24] in Culver City, California, and Forest Lawn Cemetery (Cathedral City). Other ashes went to relatives.

Courtesy -- wikipedia
- Dinah Shore

Online Chat

© 2021 - All Rights Reserved