Cliff Edwards

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cliff Edwards, 1947

Cliff Edwards (born June 14, 1895 in Hannibal , Missouri , † July 17, 1971 in Hollywood , California ), also known to many people by his stage name "Ukulele Ike" , was an American singer , vaudeville star, film actor and voice actor . He is one of the pioneers of scat singing . With Disney fans, he is mainly known as the voice of Jiminy Grille from the film Pinocchio and thus as the singer of the song " When a Star in Dark Night " is. He also spoke to Jim Crow from Dumbo .

Life

Early years

Cliff Edwards was born in Hannibal, Missouri, in 1895. At the age of 14 he left the local school and traveled to St. Louis , Missouri, where he worked as a singer in various saloons. Since many of these institutions had no piano or only one in poor condition, he learned to play the ukulele - a type of guitar. The reason for choosing this instrument is the fact that it was the cheapest one could buy in the local music store at the time. He was given the stage name "Ukelele Ike" because of a club owner who could not remember Edwards' real name. From then on he called himself that when performing.

Edwards later played in vaudeville for a long time . His breakthrough came in 1918 at the Arsonia Cafe in Chicago , Illinois, where he and the club's pianist Bob Carleton performed a tune called Ja-Da . The new piece of music was enthusiastically received by the audience and the sheet music sold successfully. Thanks to the then owner of the vaudeville theater, Joe Frisco, Edwards had the opportunity to take part in a play that was staged in the "Palace" of New York , the most famous vaudeville theater of the time. He later appeared in the Ziegfeld Follies , a series of productions on Broadway .

In 1919 Edwards recorded his first record. Three years later, in 1922, he was working on a collection of jazz songs. His success attracted the attention of the music publisher Pathé Records , with whom he signed a contract the following year. In the company, he quickly became one of the most important and famous singers of the 1920s, during which he also appeared again on various Broadway shows.

During a performance at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles , California, he caught the eye of Irving Thalberg , the production manager of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) film studio . He offered Edwards a place as an actor and after a few appearances in short films he became world famous for his performance in Singin 'in the Rain . In total, Edwards appeared in 33 films, mostly musicals , for MGM, including Marianne , Good News , Sidewalks of New York , George White's Scandals and George White's 1935 Scandals . At the same time he worked regularly for the radio station Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), on which he had his own show since 1932, and was still on the road as a singer.

At the time, Edwards had never been particularly careful with the money he had made in the economic boom of the 1920s. When the stock market collapsed in 1929 and the " Great Depression " began, he continued to work, but never achieved the status he had previously. He lost most of his money through maintenance payments to various women and other debts. He went bankrupt four times during the 1930s and early 1940s.

Work at disney

In 1940 Edwards received an offer from Walt Disney to act as voice actor on his latest film, Pinocchio . Disney had seen the singer perform a number of times , including his vocal part in Gone With the Wind , where he speaks to a wounded soldier who remembers his happy childhood. In addition, Walt had heard some of the records from "Ukelele Ike" and was sure that his voice would be perfect for the song "When a star in dark night" would be suitable. Edwards agreed and soon after traveled to the studios.

On the set he soon developed a friendship - as the spokesman for the character Jiminy Grille - and twelve-year-old Dickie Jones , who spoke Pinocchio. Often the two sat together and discussed current scenes and how to behave at this moment. On some days Edwards also took his ukulele to work and played “When a Star in Dark Night” on it. A special habit of his was that he wore the same hat all day.

A year later he worked for the second time as a voice actor in a Disney film. He took on the role of Jim Crow (or Jim Crow in the original) in the movie Dumbo . Ward Kimball , one of the main animators on the work, later said of the work that the crows themselves would never work so well if Edwards did not have a flair for timing. His last work on a Walt Disney movie was Happy, Free, Fun , in which he once again lent his voice to Jiminy Grille.

Edwards returned to Disney in the 1950s, but this time he worked for television, more precisely for the Mickey Mouse Club . There he had a number of appearances and continued to speak the character Jiminy Grille in their various television appearances, in which warnings of dangers in everyday life. For his achievements as a voice actor, he was finally honored posthumously in 2000 with the title " Disney Legend ".

Late years

Cliff Edwards' grave in Valhalla Memorial Park, Hollywood

Edwards remained loyal to radio for a long time and had several different radio shows between 1932 and 1946. However, when his popularity waned due to the bad headlines during the Great Depression, he was replaced by other singers such as Bing Crosby , Russ Columbo or Rudy Vallée . He found a replacement three years later on television, where, in addition to the aforementioned appearances in the Mickey Mouse Club, he also received his own show, The Cliff Edwards Show . The program was broadcast three days a week (Monday, Thursday and Friday evenings) on the CBS television network . Around 75 episodes were created between May 23 and December 1.

Edwards spent most of the last years of his life withdrawn in a home for unemployed actors. At times he stayed on the grounds of the Walt Disney Studios in the hope of working as a voice actor. Or he met various employees and told them about his experiences at Vaudeville over lunch. Shortly before his death, he was in a hospital in Hollywood, where he passed away peacefully on July 17, 1971. Since no one wanted to pay for his funeral, it was originally planned to transfer him to the University of California , Los Angeles, for medical examinations . But when Walt Disney Productions found out , the company took over the body and paid for a funeral.

Appreciation

Writer Will Friedwald sees Cliff Edwards as one of the pioneers in the use of scat singing :

“If he wasn't the inventor of this technique, he's certainly the first to make scat a cornerstone of his style. […] Right at the beginning of his recording career, Edwards anticipated today's Bobby McFerrin by representing a whole band all by himself: singer, brass solo and accompanying group. He introduces his very first record, James P. Johnson's " Old-Fashioned Love, " with scat phrases that trumpeter Joe Smith could have played on a Bessie Smith record, and between two text choruses he builds a scat solo instead of one Instrumental solos. On this recording from 1923 (Pathé) he just scatted the melody, but by 1924 he had switched to interpreting completely improvised choruses, and the breaks he came up with for Gershwin's " Fascinatin 'Rhythm " (Pathé) fit better to the title as Gershwin's own. "

- Will Friedwald

“With his jazz-influenced singing, Cliff Edwards was on the sidelines and was more of a comedian due to his film roles, mostly playing the role of the hero's“ best friend ”or his simple-minded companion. His particular sense of humor made him look old-fashioned at the time; therefore he was not suited to a personality (such as Bing Crosby ) that the emerging entertainment industry was looking for for its stars. "

- Will Friedwald

Filmography (selection)

literature

  • Will Friedwald: Swinging Voices of America - A Compendium of Great Voices. St. Andrä-Wierter, Hannibal 1992, ISBN 3-85445-075-3 .

Web links

Commons : Cliff Edwards  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Will Friedwald: Swinging Voices of America - A Compendium of Great Voices, p. 25.
  2. ^ Will Friedwald: Swinging Voices of America - A Compendium of Great Voices, p. 27.
personal data
SURNAME Edwards, Cliff
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ukelele Ike (stage name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American singer, film actor, and voice actor
DATE OF BIRTH June 14, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Hannibal , Missouri, United States
DATE OF DEATH 17th July 1971
Place of death Hollywood , California, United States