08 October 2024

Julie London’s Singing Voice Killed by Cigs- Phantom Dancer

Greg Poppleton Swing Radio Show

Julie London, was a U.S jazz and pop singer, film, TV and commercials actor. Billboard named her most popular woman singer of 1955, 56 and 57. She had a small, intimate voice made ‘smokey’ by being a three packs a day gal. Her last years were miserable with tobacco poisoning, strokes, lung cancer, choking and heart attacks. She’s your Phantom Dancer feature artist this week.

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JULIE

Julie London (born Peck) had a 40 year career as a singer and actor. With her soft, contralto voice she waxed 32 albums of pop and jazz standards between 1955 and 1969. Drinking and smoking had destroyed her vocal control by 1969.

As an actor, she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award in 1974 for her portrayal of Nurse Dixie McCall in the television series, Emergency!

London’s 35-year acting career began in film in 1944, and included roles as the female lead in numerous Westerns, co-starring with Rock Hudson in The Fat Man (1951), with Robert Taylor and John Cassavetes in Saddle the Wind (1958), with Gary Cooper in Man of the West (1958) and with Robert Mitchum in The Wonderful Country (1959).

In the mid-1950s, London signed a recording contract with Liberty Records, marking the beginning of her professional musical career.

LONDON

In 1955 London was spotted singing at a jazz club in Los Angeles by record producer Simon Waronker, who was recommended to her by her friend (and future husband) Bobby Troup.

Despite her obvious stage fright, Waronker was impressed by London’s vocals and delivery, and later recalled that “The lyrics poured out of her like a hurt bird.”

Waronker convinced London to pursue a recording career, and signed her with Liberty Records.

Her debut album Julie Is Her Name was released in December 1955.  Billboard named her the most popular female vocalist for 1955, 1956, and 1957.

She was the subject of a 1957 Life Magazine cover article in which she was quoted as saying, “It’s only a thimbleful of a voice, and I have to use it close to the microphone. But it is a kind of oversmoked voice, and it automatically sounds intimate.”

“Cry Me a River”, London’s most famous single and a million seller, was written by her high-school classmate Arthur Hamilton and produced by second husband, Bobby Troup (who wrote the song,  My City of Sydney).

While her music career grew, London continued to appear in films, with lead roles in Crime Against Joe (1956) and as herself in The Girl Can’t Help It (1956), one of the top-30 highest-grossing films of 1956.

In 1972, Julie London’s first husband, Jack Webb cast her and her second husband, Bobby Troup in his television series Emergency!.

London played Dixie McCall, Chief Nurse of The Emergency Room and Troup was cast as emergency-room physician Dr. Joe Early, along with her best friend, Robert Fuller as Dr. Kelly Brackett, Chief of Emergency Medicine. They all appeared in the same roles in an episode of the Webb-produced series Adam-12.

In 1977, after a six-year run of 128 episodes, Emergency! was cancelled despite good ratings. London, the only actress to appear in every episode of the series, was invited back for two of the four TV movie specials, and the show ended in 1979.

During this time, London appeared in television advertisements for Rose Milk Skin Care Cream.

Later, Webb offered London a position as executive producer of future television projects, but she chose to retire from the television industry to spend more time with her family.

She completed “My Funny Valentine”, her last musical recording, for the soundtrack of the Burt Reynolds film Sharky’s Machine in 1981.