Belle Baker
Encyclopedia
Belle Baker was an American
singer and actress. Popular throughout the 1910s and 1920s, Baker introduced a number of ragtime
and torch
songs including Irving Berlin
's "Blue Skies
" and "My Yiddishe Mama". She performed in the Ziegfeld Follies
and introduced a number of Irving Berlin
's songs. An early adapter to radio, Baker hosted her own radio show during the 1930s. Eddie Cantor
called her “Dinah Shore
, Patti Page
, Peggy Lee
, Judy Garland
all rolled into one.”
at the age of 15. She performed in Hammerstein
’s 'Victoria' in 1911, though her performance was panned, mainly for her song choices. One critic, Z. f Zeitel took Baker under his wing and by the age of 17 she was a headliner. One of her earliest hits was, "Cohen Owes Me $97".
By 1917 she was a top headliner in New York. 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. Baker became known for her ragtime and torch songs including, "Hard Hearted Hannah", "My Sin", "My Kid", "When the Black Sheep Returns to the Fold", "I'll Pick Myself a California Rose". She made a handful of recordings, including "Hard Hearted Hannah" in 1924.
As Baker's fame rose as a vocalist she became known for her Yiddish themed torch songs. In 1925, fellow vaudevillian Sophie Tucker
gave Baker a song that had been sent to her for consideration. "My Yiddishe Mama" was a blatant tearjerker, but it was immensely popular and became Baker’s signature song. Similar songs Baker recorded included, "My Man", "My Kid", "Baby Your Mother" and "My Sin".
's Betsy. She introduced Irving Berlin
's "Blue Skies
" in the Florenz Ziegfeld
production, which ran for 39 performances from December 28, 1926 to January 29, 1927. With music by Richard Rodgers
and lyrics by Lorenz Hart
, the musical comedy had a book by Irving Caesar
and David Freedman
. Victor Baravelle was the musical director.
Baker had a brief film career as silent film
gave way to lavish technicolor
musical
talkies. She made her film debut in the starring in the 1929 talkie "Song of Love" with Ralph Graves
and Eve Arden
. The film survives and has been screened at film festivals but not released on DVD. "Song of Love" features two songs performed by Baker written by her husband, "I'm Walking with the Moonbeams (Talking to the Stars)" and "Take Everything But You".
Baker made two more film appearances, one in 1935's "Charing Cross Road
" starring John Mills
and 1944's "Atlantic City" in which she performed 'Nobody's Sweetheart'.
, broadcasting's first major variety show, which featured Broadway's top headliners. Baker continued performing through the 1930s, but limited her performances to radio shows.
After Abrahams' death Baker married and quickly divorced Elias H. Sugarman. The scandal caused her to limit her performances in her later years. She made one final television appearance in "This Is Your Life" in 1955, just two years before her death.
(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
. Abraham's death in 1931 had a profound effect on Baker. For more than a year afterwords she restricted her performing to radio. On September 21, 1937, she married Elias H. Sugarman, editor of the theatrical trade magazine, Billboard
. The couple divorced in 1941.
Baker died of a heart attack on April 25, 1957 at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles
. She is buried in the Abrahams mausoleum in Mount Judah Cemetery in Ridgewood, New York
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
singer and actress. Popular throughout the 1910s and 1920s, Baker introduced a number of ragtime
Ragtime
Ragtime is an original musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged," rhythm. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being published...
and torch
Torch song
A torch song is a sentimental love song, typically one in which the singer laments an unrequited or lost love, either where one party is oblivious to the existence of the other, where one party has moved on, or where a romantic affair has affected the relationship...
songs including Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist of Jewish heritage, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history.His first hit song, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", became world famous...
's "Blue Skies
Blue Skies (song)
-History:The song was composed in 1926 as a last minute addition to the Rodgers and Hart musical, Betsy. Although the show only ran for 39 performances, "Blue Skies" was an instant success, with audiences on opening night demanding 24 encores of the piece from star, Belle Baker. During the final...
" and "My Yiddishe Mama". She performed in the Ziegfeld Follies
Ziegfeld Follies
The Ziegfeld Follies were a series of elaborate theatrical productions on Broadway in New York City from 1907 through 1931. They became a radio program in 1932 and 1936 as The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air....
and introduced a number of Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist of Jewish heritage, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history.His first hit song, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", became world famous...
's songs. An early adapter to radio, Baker hosted her own radio show during the 1930s. Eddie Cantor
Eddie Cantor
Eddie Cantor was an American "illustrated song" performer, comedian, dancer, singer, actor and songwriter...
called her “Dinah Shore
Dinah Shore
Dinah Shore was an American singer, actress, and television personality...
, Patti Page
Patti Page
Clara Ann Fowler , known by her professional name Patti Page, is an American singer, one of the best-known female artists in traditional pop music. She was the best-selling female artist of the 1950s, and has sold over 100 million records...
, Peggy Lee
Peggy Lee
Peggy Lee was an American jazz and popular music singer, songwriter, composer, and actress in a career spanning six decades. From her beginning as a vocalist on local radio to singing with Benny Goodman's big band, she forged a sophisticated persona, evolving into a multi-faceted artist and...
, Judy Garland
Judy Garland
Judy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage...
all rolled into one.”
Early life
Baker was born Bella Becker in 1893 to a Russian Jewish family. Baker started performing Cannon Street Music Hall at age 11, where she was discovered by the Yiddish Theatre manager Jacob Adler. She then was managed in vaudeville by Lew Leslie, who she would later marry. She made her vaudeville debut in Scranton, PennsylvaniaScranton, Pennsylvania
Scranton is a city in the northeastern part of Pennsylvania, United States. It is the county seat of Lackawanna County and the largest principal city in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre metropolitan area. Scranton had a population of 76,089 in 2010, according to the U.S...
at the age of 15. She performed in Hammerstein
Hammerstein
Hammerstein is a municipality on the Rhine River in the district of Neuwied in Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany....
’s 'Victoria' in 1911, though her performance was panned, mainly for her song choices. One critic, Z. f Zeitel took Baker under his wing and by the age of 17 she was a headliner. One of her earliest hits was, "Cohen Owes Me $97".
By 1917 she was a top headliner in New York. In the early 1920s, when she was well known as The Ragtime Singer, Baker took part in a Baltimore song competition with Catherine Calvert
Catherine Calvert
Catherine Calvert, as she was known on the screen, or Mrs. Paul Armstrong, as she was in real life, was born in Baltimore, Md., and after many years experience on time stage in "Brown of Harvard," "The Deep Purple," a play from the pen of her husband, and many other productions she entered the...
, the Hamilton Sisters (Pearl and Violet) and Jessie Fordyce. She was the first artist to record "All of Me
All of Me (song)
"All of Me" is a popular song and jazz standard written by Gerald Marks and Seymour Simons in 1931.First performed by Belle Baker over the radio and recorded in December 1931 by Ruth Etting, it has become one of the most recorded songs of its era, with notable versions by Russ Columbo, Bing Crosby,...
," 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. Baker became known for her ragtime and torch songs including, "Hard Hearted Hannah", "My Sin", "My Kid", "When the Black Sheep Returns to the Fold", "I'll Pick Myself a California Rose". She made a handful of recordings, including "Hard Hearted Hannah" in 1924.
As Baker's fame rose as a vocalist she became known for her Yiddish themed torch songs. In 1925, fellow vaudevillian Sophie Tucker
Sophie Tucker
Sophie Tucker was a Russian/Ukrainian-born American singer and actress. Known for her stentorian delivery of comical and risqué songs, she was one of the most popular entertainers in America during the first half of the 20th century...
gave Baker a song that had been sent to her for consideration. "My Yiddishe Mama" was a blatant tearjerker, but it was immensely popular and became Baker’s signature song. Similar songs Baker recorded included, "My Man", "My Kid", "Baby Your Mother" and "My Sin".
Broadway and film
In 1926, Baker had the title role in BroadwayBroadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
's Betsy. She introduced Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist of Jewish heritage, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history.His first hit song, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", became world famous...
's "Blue Skies
Blue Skies (song)
-History:The song was composed in 1926 as a last minute addition to the Rodgers and Hart musical, Betsy. Although the show only ran for 39 performances, "Blue Skies" was an instant success, with audiences on opening night demanding 24 encores of the piece from star, Belle Baker. During the final...
" in the Florenz Ziegfeld
Florenz Ziegfeld
Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. , , was an American Broadway impresario, notable for his series of theatrical revues, the Ziegfeld Follies , inspired by the Folies Bergère of Paris. He also produced the musical Show Boat...
production, which ran for 39 performances from December 28, 1926 to January 29, 1927. With music by Richard Rodgers
Richard Rodgers
Richard Charles Rodgers was an American composer of music for more than 900 songs and for 43 Broadway musicals. He also composed music for films and television. He is best known for his songwriting partnerships with the lyricists Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II...
and lyrics by Lorenz Hart
Lorenz Hart
Lorenz "Larry" Milton Hart was the lyricist half of the famed Broadway songwriting team Rodgers and Hart...
, the musical comedy had a book by Irving Caesar
Irving Caesar
Irving Caesar was an American lyricist and theater composer who wrote lyrics for "Swanee," "Sometimes I'm Happy," "Crazy Rhythm," and "Tea for Two," one of the most frequently recorded tunes ever written. He was born and died in New York.Caesar, the son of Morris Keiser, a Romanian Jew, was...
and David Freedman
David Freedman
David Freedman was a Romanian-born American playwright and biographer who became known as the "King of the Gag-writers" in the early days of radio....
. Victor Baravelle was the musical director.
Baker had a brief film career as silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
gave way to lavish technicolor
Technicolor
Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
musical
Musical film
The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate...
talkies. She made her film debut in the starring in the 1929 talkie "Song of Love" with Ralph Graves
Ralph Graves
Ralph Graves was an American screenwriter, film director, and actor who appeared in 93 films between 1918 and 1949....
and Eve Arden
Eve Arden
Eve Arden was an American actress. Her almost 60-year career crossed most media frontiers with supporting and leading roles, but she may be best-remembered for playing the sardonic but engaging title character, a high school teacher, on Our Miss Brooks, and as the Rydell High School principal in...
. The film survives and has been screened at film festivals but not released on DVD. "Song of Love" features two songs performed by Baker written by her husband, "I'm Walking with the Moonbeams (Talking to the Stars)" and "Take Everything But You".
Baker made two more film appearances, one in 1935's "Charing Cross Road
Charing Cross Road
Charing Cross Road is a street in central London running immediately north of St Martin-in-the-Fields to St Giles Circus and then becomes Tottenham Court Road...
" starring John Mills
John Mills
Sir John Mills CBE , born Lewis Ernest Watts Mills, was an English actor who made more than 120 films in a career spanning seven decades.-Life and career:...
and 1944's "Atlantic City" in which she performed 'Nobody's Sweetheart'.
Radio and television
On radio, she was a guest performer on The Eveready HourThe Eveready Hour
The Eveready Hour was the first commercially sponsored variety program in the history of broadcasting. It premiered December 4, 1923 on WEAF Radio in New York. Radio's first sponsored network program. it was paid for by the National Carbon Company, which at the time owned Eveready Battery...
, broadcasting's first major variety show, which featured Broadway's top headliners. Baker continued performing through the 1930s, but limited her performances to radio shows.
After Abrahams' death Baker married and quickly divorced Elias H. Sugarman. The scandal caused her to limit her performances in her later years. She made one final television appearance in "This Is Your Life" in 1955, just two years before her death.
Personal life
Baker's first marriage was at the age of sixteen to producer and promoter Lew Leslie. The couple divorced in 1918. In 1919, she was married to the composer Maurice AbrahamsMaurice Abrahams
Maurice Abrahams was a successful American songwriter in the early years of the 20th century.Popular songs co-written by Abrahams included "Ragtime Cowboy Joe" and "He'd Have to Get Under — Get Out and Get Under " ....
(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
Herbert Baker (screenwriter)
Herbert Baker born Herbert Abrahams in New York City 25 December 1920 died 30 June 1983 of cancer in Encino, California was a songwriter and screenwriter for television and films.- Biography :...
. Abraham's death in 1931 had a profound effect on Baker. For more than a year afterwords she restricted her performing to radio. On September 21, 1937, she married Elias H. Sugarman, editor of the theatrical trade magazine, Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
. The couple divorced in 1941.
Baker died of a heart attack on April 25, 1957 at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. She is buried in the Abrahams mausoleum in Mount Judah Cemetery in Ridgewood, New York
Ridgewood, New York
Ridgewood, New York refers to different places:*Ridgewood, Queens, in the borough of Queens in New York City*Ridgewood, Niagara County, New York, a hamlet in Niagara County, New York...
.
Filmography
- Song of Love (1929)
- Charing Cross RoadCharing Cross Road (film)Charing Cross Road is a 1935 British drama film directed by Albert de Courville and starring John Mills, June Clyde, Derek Oldham and Belle Baker...
(1935) - Atlantic City (1944)