- Belle Baker
Belle Baker (
25 December 1893 ,New York City, New York -29 April 1957 ,Los Angeles, California ) was an Americansinger andactress . Born Bella Becker, she rose to fame as a vaudeville vocalist, appearing on Broadway and in nightclubs, films, radio and television.In the early 1920s, when she was well known as The Ragtime Singer, Baker took part in a Baltimore song competition with Catherine Calvert, the Hamilton Sisters (Pearl and Violet) and Jessie Fordyce. She was the first artist to record "All of Me," one of the most recorded songs of its era, and she was also the first person in the United States to do a radio broadcast from a moving train.
In 1926, Baker had the title role in Broadway's "Betsy". She introduced Irving Berlin's "Blues Skies" in the
Florenz Ziegfeld production, which ran for 39 performances fromDecember 28 ,1926 toJanuary 29 ,1927 . With music byRichard Rodgers and lyrics byLorenz Hart , the musical comedy had a book byIrving Caesar andDavid Freedman . Victor Baravelle was the musical director.On radio, she was a guest performer on "
The Eveready Hour ", broadcasting's first major variety show, which featured Broadway's top headliners. After roles in the films "Song of Love" (1929) and "Charing Cross Road" (1935), she appeared as herself in "Atlantic City" (1944).She was married to the composer
Maurice Abrahams (1883-1931), who wrote the songs "I'm Walking with the Moonbeams (Talking to the Stars)" and "Take Everything But You" for "Song of Love". The couple had one child, Herbert Baker. OnSeptember 21 ,1937 , she married Elias E. Sugarman, editor of the theatrical trade magazine, "Billboard ".She died of a heart attack in 1957 at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles.
Listen to
* [http://www.botar.us/archives.html Botar Archives: Belle Baker (six songs)]
External links
* [http://movies2.nytimes.com/mem/movies/review.html?title1=Song%20of%20Love%2c%20The&title2=&reviewer=MORDAUNT%20HALL&pdate=19291114&v_id=111032 "New York Times": Mordaunt Hall review of "Song of Love" (November 14, 1929)]
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