- Tamara Drasin
Tamara Drasin (c.1905 – March 1943), often credited as simply Tamara, was a singer and actress who introduced the song "
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes " [ [http://www.jazzstandards.com/compositions-0/smokegetsinyoureyes.htm "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (1933)" @ JazzStandards.com as retrievedDecember 31 , 2006.] ] in the 1933 Broadway musical "Roberta ".Early life
Drasin was born sometime around 1905 in the Imperial Russian village of
Sorochintsï , in what is modern-dayUkraine .tage career
With her dark, exotic looks and throbbing vocal style, Drasin was ideal casting material for European characters in musicals of the 1930s. In "
Free For All ," she was Marishka Tarasov; in "Roberta ," she was Princess Stephanie of Russian nobility; and in "Right This Way " and "Leave It to Me! ", she portrayed Frenchwomen. In all, Drasin appeared in seven musicals, from 1927 to 1938.Music career
Besides "
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes " and anotherballad , "The Touch of Your Hand ", in "Roberta", Drasin introduced three other standards: "I Can Dream, Can't I? " and "I'll Be Seeing You" in "Right This Way " and "Get Out of Town " in "Leave It to Me! ."Death and legacy
Ironically, as "I'll Be Seeing You" was becoming one of the homefront anthems of
World War II , Drasin died in aUSO plane crash nearLisbon ,Portugal in March 1943.Her story was partially told in the
Jane Froman autobiographical movie, "With a Song in My Heart", as both were in the same plane crash. [ [http://www.jazzstandards.com/biographies/tamara.htm "Tamara Drasin" @ JazzStandards.com as retrievedDecember 31 2006.] ]Tamara Drasin is sometimes confused with two other performers of the thirties musical era: the dancers
Tamara Geva andTamara Toumanova ."Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" was later re-recorded by
The Platters .References
External links
*imdb name|id=0848453|name=Tamara Drasin
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