Ozzie Nelson

Ozzie Nelson (born March 20, 1906 in Jersey City , New Jersey as Oswald George Nelson , † June 3, 1975 in Los Angeles , California ) was an American singer and big band leader in the field of swing and popular music as well as entertainer, Actor and television producer. Oswald "Ozzie" Nelson was best known in the United States through the radio and television series The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet , on which he worked with his wife Harriet Hilliard and their two sons David and Ricky Nelson .

Live and act

Nelson was the son of Swedish and English parents and grew up in the New York suburb of Ridgefield Park . He later graduated from Rutgers University and then went to law school. Even in college he played the saxophone in a small campus band, with which he performed at Glen Island Casino during the summer vacation . The great response eventually led him to give up studying law; he made music his main occupation during the Depression.

Ozzie Nelson formed his first band in New York in 1930, the Ozzie Nelson Band , which had its breakthrough with a reader survey by the New York Daily Mirror and even outpaced Paul Whiteman's orchestra. In the 1930s to the mid-1940s, Ozzie Nelson's band recorded numerous records, first for Brunswick , then for Vocalion , again for Brunswick and later for Bluebird .

On February 16, 1931, the song Dream a Little Dream of Me was recorded for Brunswick Records.

1934 Nelson had a hit with the title "Over Somebody Else's Shoulder", in which Nelson introduced Harriet Hilliard as his first band vocalist; In 1932 he had already sang in a duet with her when she joined the band; these duets gave the couple enormous popularity in the United States. The two married in October 1935. Hilliard stayed in the band until the birth of their first son.

The couple have two sons, David (1936–2011), who later became an actor and director, and Eric (1940–1985) who became a well-known singer and actor under the name Ricky Nelson .

In 1935 Ozzie Nelson and his orchestra had a number one hit on the pop charts with "And Then Some"; Ozzie Nelson composed other songs like "Wave the Stick Blues", "Subway", "Jersey Jive", "Swingin 'on the Golden Gate" and "Central Avenue Shuffle". Even Johnny Burke wrote another song material for Nelson's band.

Ozzie Nelson also had various appearances with his band in the music films of the 1940s and also had speaking roles, such as in the musical Strictly in the Groove (1942). He promoted his band with the then popular soundies that played on the movie jukeboxes of the 1940s. In 1952, when he and his family had established themselves as radio and television stars, they starred in the film Here Come the Nelsons with Rock Hudson .

In the 1940s Nelson (in order to be able to spend more time with his family) shifted his activities to appearing on the Red Skelton's Radio Show . Nelson then developed and produced his own radio series, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet . This show made its debut in 1944; her sons were portrayed by actors. In 1952 the series switched to television, while the radio version continued for two years. Nelson produced the series and was involved in the scripts. It was synonymous with ideal American family life in the 1950s and was the longest sitcom in US television history.

His last television show was called Ozzie's Girls and ran for over a year from the fall of 1973 when he had to cancel it for health reasons; in this series, Ozzie and Harriet rented their (now adult) sons' nurseries to two college students, one white and one black. In 1973 Ozzie Nelson also published his autobiography Ozzie .

After the sitcom was canceled, Ozzie Nelson continued working as a producer and program director on several television shows including Adam-12 , The DA , and Bridget Loves Bernie .

Ozzie Nelson died of liver cancer and is buried with his wife and son Ricky in Forest Lawn Cemetery (Hollywood Hills) in Los Angeles .

Ozzie Nelson is remembered by a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (6555 Hollywood Blvd.), which he received for his services to the television industry. Along with his wife, Ozzie Nelson received another star (6260 Hollywood Boulevard) for his performance on the radio.

Discographic notes

• The Uncollected: Ozzie Nelson (Hindsight, 1942)
• The Uncollected: Ozzie Nelson, Vol. 2 (Hindsight, 1937)

Works

• Ozzie : Prentice Hall, 1973, ISBN 0-13-647768-2 .

Web links

• Ozzie Nelson in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Museum of Broadcast Communications: Ozzie and Harriet Nelson
• Ozzie Nelson in the database of Find a Grave (English)
• Biography in the Bigband Library

swell

• George T. Simon: The Golden Era of Big Bands ("The Big bands"). Hannibal-Verlag, Höfen 2004, ISBN 3-854-45243-8 .
• Leo Walker: The Big Band Almanac . Ward Ritchie Press, Pasadena. 1978.

Remarks

1. ↑ A street at Ridgefield Park High School that he attended and played on a football team is now named after him.
2. ↑ David Nelson's obituary in The New York Times