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Georgia Holt, the seven times-married mother of Cher who spent time as a model, actress and singer-songwriter, has died, her daughter announced Saturday night (Dec. 10) on Twitter. She was 96.
“Mom is gone,” Cher wrote.
A rep for the Oscar-winning singer-actress confirmed Holt’s death to The Hollywood Reporter on Sunday morning. No details of Holt’s death were immediately available.
Holt appeared briefly in such films as A Life of Her Own (1950), Grounds for Marriage (1951), Father’s Little Dividend (1951) and Artists and Models (1955) and on TV shows like The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet and, as a “Jacques Marcel” model, on I Love Lucy (in the hilarious 1956 episode “Lucy Gets a Paris Gown”).
Holt was offered a contract by Columbia Records, and in 1980 recorded an album, Honky Tonk Woman, backed by members of Elvis Presley’s band. It included a duet with Cher, “I’m Just Your Yesterday”; covers of “Love Me Tender” and “Cryin’ Time”; and original tunes written by Holt.
“I know that a record company might want to sign me just because I’m Cher’s mother,” she told People magazine in 1978. “I’d like to have a career, but I’m not going to be a novelty or a flash in the pan. A lot of people say I can do it.”
However, the album was not released until spring 2013, shortly after the master tapes were rediscovered in Holt’s garage. Cher took the tapes to her musical director, Paul Mirkovich of The Voice, and “he went in and took it all apart and put all new music in it,” she told Jay Leno on The Tonight Show. “Basically, we just kept Mom’s voice and put everything else new on it.”
Also in 2013, mother and daughter appeared (with Cher’s half-sister, actress Georganne La Piere) in the Mother’s Day Lifetime documentary Dear Mom, Love Cher.
A year later, Holt appeared as a guest judge alongside her grandson Chaz Bono on Logo TV’s RuPaul’s Drag Race.
Holt was born Jackie Jean Crouch on June 9, 1926, in Kensett, Arkansas. Her mother was just 13 at the time and her father, a baker and an alcoholic, wasn’t much older.
“When I was little I was a singer,” she said in a 2013 interview. “When I was 7, my father used to put me up on top of the old-fashioned bars. They used to have sawdust on the floor and spittoons. It was during the Depression. We had no money and no food — well, we got beans, but that was it.”
She performed with bandleader Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys at age 10 and then hitchhiked to California with her dad and her brother. She once said that she had attended 17 different junior high schools growing up.
While working in a doughnut shop in Fresno, California, she met truck driver John Sarkisian, and soon they were off to Reno, Nevada, to be married.
“I left him the day after [the wedding],” she told People. “I knew I didn’t want to be married. But he told me to try it for three months, and if I didn’t like it, then I could walk out. Well, before three months was out, I was pregnant with Cher.”
Cherilyn Sarkisian was born on May 20, 1946, in El Centro, California, and spent some time in a Catholic orphanage, where nuns urged her mother to give up her baby for adoption, but Holt wouldn’t do it.
Holt won several singing and beauty competitions and worked as a model as she made her way to Hollywood. She said that she was given a part in John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle (1950), but her agent called to say she was being replaced by Marilyn Monroe.
Holt was married three times by the time she was 21. Her husbands were Sarkisian, John Southall, Joseph Harper Collins, Chris Alcaide, banker Gilbert La Pierre (who adopted Cher and Georganne), Sarkisian again and Hamilton Holt.
She also had a recent and longtime relationship with former antiques dealer Craig Spencer.
This article originally appeared on The Hollywood Reporter.
Tina Turner is mourning a loss in her family. The singer’s youngest son, Ronnie Turner — whom she shared with late ex-husband Ike Turner — died at age 62 on Thursday (Dec. 8).
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TMZ was the first to report the news, stating that police received a call that he was not breathing and later arrived on the scene to revive him with CPR, but were unsuccessful.
Following the news of the tragedy, the veteran singer took to Facebook to share a simple yet heartfelt message honoring her son’s memory that read, “Ronnie, you left the world far too early. In sorrow I close my eyes and think of you, my beloved son.”
Ronnie’s wife, Afida Turner, also expressed her grief on social media and posted a series of pictures of him in a carousel posted that she captioned: “MY GOD RONNIE TURNER A TRUE ANGEL HIUGE SOUL HIGHLY SPIRITUAL MY HUSBAND MY BEST FRIEND MY BABY IYOUR MUMMY YOUR NURSE I DID THE BEST TO THE END THIS TIME I WAS NO ABLE TO SAVE YOU LOVE U FOR THIS 17 YEARS THIS IS VERY VERY VERY BAD I AM VERY MAD THIS IS A TRAGEDY U WITH YOUR BROTHER CRAIG AND YOUR FATHER IKE TURNER AND ALINE REST IN PARADISE SO UNFAIR.”
Ronnie, full name Ronnie Rennelle Turner, was the youngest of four children that Tina Turner had with ex-husband and former collaborator Ike Turner. The pair welcomed Ronnie on Oct. 27, 1960. Born into a musical family, Ronnie assumed his parents’ talents and played bass in Manufactured Funk with songwriter and musician Patrick Moten, as well as in his parents’ bands. He married French singer Afida in 2007.
While Ronnie’s cause of death is currently unclear, he has had a history of health issues throughout the year, including cancer. Turner’s eldest son Craig, whom Ike adopted once they married, died by suicide in 2018.
Jet Black, one of the co-founders and the original drummer in beloved British new wave/punk band The Stranglers has died at 84. “It is with heavy hearts we announce the passing of our dear friend, colleague and band elder statesman Jet Black,” the band wrote in a statement on Thursday (Dec. 8). “Jet died peacefully at home surrounded by his family. Fond adieu, fly straight JB.”
In a lengthy tribute, the band said that Black (born Brian John Duffy on Aug. 26, 1938 in Essex, England) died on Tuesday (Dec. 6) of unspecified causes. “As the ‘elder statesmen’ of the group, Jet was already a successful businessman in the Guildford area when The Stranglers formed in 1974,” they wrote. “Jet owned a fleet of ice cream vans, one of which, as many fans will fondly remember, was used to tour the UK in the early years. Jet also owned an off licence, the upstairs apartment of which doubled as ‘Stranglers HQ’ in the early days.”
The group credited Black with keeping the beat on 23 top 40 singles in the UK, as well as 19 top 40 albums on the official UK charts thanks to his jazz-influenced style on such beloved hits as “Golden Brown,” “Patches” and “No More Heroes.” Just years after forming, the band became a vital part of the UK punk and new wave scenes, making their bones supporting American punks such as the Ramones and Patti Smith on their UK tours.
The Stranglers’ lone remaining original member, bassist/co-frontman JJ Burnel said, “The welcoming committee has doubled. After years of ill health Jet has finally been released. He was a force of nature. An inspiration. The Stranglers would not have been if it wasn’t for him. The most erudite of men. A rebel with many causes. Say hi to Dave for me.” The band’s former keyboardist/vocalist, Dave Greenfield, died in 2020.
Black retired from touring and performing live with the Stranglers in 2015 due to complications from respiratory issues that had dogged him since childhood and which had caused him to take a series of health-related pauses from touring in the early and mid-200s. “Despite difficulties in performing towards the end of his career, Jet’s charismatic charm resonated with fans who would endlessly chant his name as he took his place at the drums,” they wrote.
In addition to his steady-on drumming, Black also wrote two books about the band’s notorious 1980 arrest in Nice, France for allegedly inciting a riot, 1981’s Much Ado About Nothing and 2010’s Seven Days in Nice.
See the band’s tweet and other tributes below.
RIP Jet Black drummer and co founder of The Stranglers. As young punks we saw them play many times. Jet was always the solid foundation of the band.— Lol Tolhurst (@LolTolhurst) December 9, 2022
The backbone of The Stranglers’ rhythm.Rest in peace Jet Black, drummer and co-founder of pivotal proto-punk band The Stranglers. Thank you for so many classics 🖤 pic.twitter.com/bp820x0VvZ— Rough Trade (@RoughTrade) December 9, 2022
Peter Cooper, a Grammy-nominated producer, highly regarded Nashville journalist and Country Music Hall of Fame executive, died Dec. 6. He was 52.
His family confirmed the death, posting on Facebook that he died in his sleep after suffering a severe head injury following a fall late last week.
A South Carolina native, Cooper joined the staff of The Tennessean as its prime music writer in 2000 before moving to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2014 as museum editor.
“He grew to assume the role of museum senior director, producer and writer, driving several important creative initiatives and bringing a poetic grace to them all,” the hall’s CEO Kyle Young said in a statement. “He developed and implemented mission-oriented programs, exhibitions, podcasts and, as a writer, elegantly described the rich character of the country music story. His talents were immense, but his heart was even bigger, and he touched the lives of those he encountered in immeasurable ways. Our thoughts are with his family during this difficult time.”
For all his talents, many saw Cooper first and foremost as a journalist, who brought tremendous empathy to the subjects he covered, including such titans as Johnny Cash, George Jones and Kris Kristofferson, who reportedly told Cooper that he looked “at the world with an artist’s eye, and a human heart and soul.”
Ricky Skaggs tells Billboard he considered Cooper “one of the most gentle and soft-spoken men I ever knew. His knowledge of music, the writers, the players and singers was really unmatched in Nashville. Our industry lost a vital voice for our times. He will be sorely missed!”
Best-selling biographer/journalist Alanna Nash added, “One of the many things that separated Peter from the rest of us who do this work, aside from just the breathtaking humanity that imbued his writing, was his side gig as a musician and his intimate understanding of the torment artists endure. He wrote journalism from the inside of the story, from its guts, because he lived all the wrenching passion and rode every threadbare highway. You don’t drive Hank Williams’ 300-mile ‘last ride’ from Knoxville to Oak Hill, W.V., as Peter did for a story about the 50th anniversary of Williams’ death, without feeling that same pain.”
Like Tom T. Hall, whom he revered, Cooper was, above all, a storyteller through his reported pieces and his own career as a performing singer/songwriter. An accomplished musician, he released several albums as part of the duo Eric Brace & Peter Cooper and was in the trio Eric Brace, Peter Cooper and Thomm Jutz.
His songs had been recorded by John Prine, Todd Snider, Bobby Bare and Mac Wiseman, among others.
Cooper received a Grammy nomination in best children’s album for 2011’s I Love: Tom T. Hall’s Songs of Fox Hollow, a tribute album to the songwriter’s story songs.
A memorial service will take place in early 2023. In lieu of flowers, his family asks that donations be made to the Baker Cooper fund to support his 12-year-old son’s education care of Wells Fargo Bank or to the Country Music Hall of Fame.
–Assistance in preparing this story provided by Jessica Nicholson.
Steve Greenberg, founder/CEO of S-Curve Records, produced “The Complete Stax/Volt Singles 1959-1968,” and box sets devoted to Stax artists Otis Redding and Sam & Dave. He wrote album notes for “Stax ’68: A Memphis Story.” Below, he reflects on a 30-year friendship with Stax co-founder Jim Stewart, who died Dec. 5.
I first met Jim Stewart when I was producing the 9-CD Complete Stax/Volt Singles:1959-1968 box, which came out in 1991. While consulting with him over the phone about the project, he mentioned that legendary Stax songstress Carla Thomas still lived in Memphis, and that he’d really love a chance to work with her again on a record—something he hadn’t done in over 20 years. Almost immediately, I flew down to Memphis, meeting Jim and Carla at the stately Peabody Hotel to discuss the possibility of making a record together. The record never materialized, but a bond began to form between Jim and me.
What initially struck me about Jim was his humility: Here was a man who’d co-founded one of the greatest R&B record labels of all time—who, in addition to running the label, was in the studio producing such classic recordings as Otis Redding’s “Try A Little Tenderness” and Rufus Thomas’ “Walking the Dog.” Perhaps even more impressively, he created an environment at Stax where Black and white musicians could work together in complete equality, all the while situated in the heart of the segregated South during the most tumultuous years of the civil rights movement. Yet, Jim possessed none of the hubris or self-regard typical of many who have achieved greatness or attained legendary status.
Nor did he express an ounce of bitterness, even though his career could be described as a rags-to-riches-to-rags-to-riches-to-rags story: From a modest upbringing in rural Tennessee, he started a record label in 1957 with his sister Estelle Axton originally called Satellite before rebranding as Stax (St+ Ax) in 1961. A string of hits by the likes of Sam & Dave, Booker T. & the MGs, Redding and many more artists brought worldwide fame to Stax, and the label was flying high. But in 1968 Stewart learned that a distribution contract he’d signed with Atlantic’s president Jerry Wexler a few years earlier—without consulting an attorney—had somewhere in the fine print given Atlantic permanent rights to the entire Stax catalog. This calamity occurred nearly simultaneously with the death of Stax’s biggest star, Redding, in a plane crash, and the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis, just a short distance from the Stax studio, causing parts of that city to go up in flames and hastening the demise of the air of racial harmony at the label.
Taken together, these tragedies would have been enough to cause most record companies to shutter. But, together with his new partner, the civil rights activist turned record promo man Al Bell, Jim started Stax Records again from scratch, with the label achieving even greater commercial and critical success in its second incarnation. As the ‘70s dawned, Stax, under Bell’s leadership, became deeply identified with the cause of Black empowerment, and Jim decided it was time to exit, selling his interest to his partner. Now a wealthy man, Jim could have ridden off into the sunset, but a few years later, when Stax began to experience serious financial difficulties, Jim reinvested most of his assets in the label, not being able to bear the idea of his baby’s demise. By 1976, the label declared bankruptcy and closed. Stewart lost nearly everything; his home and possessions were sold at auction in 1981.
When I first met Jim that night at the Peabody, I imagined he harbored no small amount of ill will towards Atlantic Records, the label that had taken away his catalog and was now putting out the box set I’d produced. But no, he said, he didn’t hold any sort of grudge, and when I invited him to come to New York for the launch party celebrating the release of the box set, he was only too happy to do so. The New York event featured a concert by legendary Stax performers and was attended by Atlantic Records veterans who’d been around during Stax’s Atlantic period, including label founder Ahmet Ertegun. Jim offered some remarks from the podium—his first public appearance in nearly two decades—and spoke of what a pleasure it was to see old friends, and what an honor it had been to get to work with such great artists and to have been in business with Atlantic. He even referred to Jerry Wexler as “my hero.” He was the embodiment of grace.
Even after Stax closed, Jim continued in the music business. In the late ‘70s he opened a recording studio in Memphis with former Stax guitarist Bobby Manuel. Eventually, they started the Houston Connection record label, scoring a top 15 Billboard R&B hit in 1982 with former Stax artist Margie Joseph’s “Knockout!” They never had another national hit, but Jim kept at it, producing records locally.
The release of the Stax box brought Jim back into the music industry’s field of vision, and he began to make regular visits to New York, always stopping by to have lunch and to pitch me his newest discoveries. I remember he had a fun record called “Mud Ducks” by Memphis rapper Yan-C which we almost signed when I was head of A&R at Big Beat Records, but in the end the only record I ever worked on with Jim was Lea’Netta Nelson’s “That’s the Way,” a great slow R&B jam that I signed in 1994 when I was an A&R guy at, of all places, Atlantic Records. I had high hopes for that record, but looking back, I think Atlantic only let me sign it as a token gesture to Jim, and it received no attention, only seeing release as a radio promo single. I spoke to Jim shortly after that record disappeared without a trace, and he told me he was retiring from the music business.
Eventually, Jim received his due as one of the great label chiefs of the 20th century. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2002 and made one final public appearance at Memphis’ Stax Museum of American Soul Music in 2019, where he was feted by such Stax legends as Carla Thomas and Al Bell in a special salute.
The last time I spoke to Jim was a phone interview with him for the liner notes of 2019’s “Stax’68” box set, a collection chronicling Stax’s annus horribilus and its aftermath, produced by A&R man/music historian Joe McEwen. Jim was in good spirits, with a sharp recollection of events that happened more than 50 years earlier. He was better off financially, partially due to producer royalty payments for the Stax singles he produced, which began to be paid in the 1990s. Even looking back on that trying year of 1968, he remembered it with fondness. “Most importantly,” he told me, “We still loved what we were doing. We believed it was going to be okay.”
This world will miss you, Jim Stewart. You were a great label executive, a producer of classic records and you believed in the dignity of all people. And you really appreciated that you got to do it at all.
Janis Hunter Gaye, the second wife of Motown legend Marvin Gaye and the inspiration for several of his songs, died Saturday of an undisclosed cause at her home in Rhode Island, her family announced. She was 66.
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Hunter Gaye was introduced to the singer by producer Ed Townsend during a 1973 recording session at Hitsville West in Los Angeles for his album Let’s Get It On, which was released that year. Gaye at the time was married to Anna Gordy, the sister of Motown founder Berry Gordy; Hunter Gaye was 17, he was 34.
Gaye wrote the song “Jan” for his future wife and recorded it for his 1974 album, Marvin Gaye Live!, and his 1976 album, I Want You, has been described as “a romantic and erotic tribute” to her. His 1977 disco single “Got to Give It Up,” which reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, featured her on background vocals. They were married that year.
According to her family, Hunter Gaye put together the iconic outfit — red watch cap, beaded denim shirt and silver red-laced platform boots— that Gaye donned for his memorable 1974 concert performance at the Oakland Coliseum.
The pair were married from 1977 until their 1981 divorce. He died three years later after being shot by his father in Los Angeles. Her memoir, After the Dance: My Life With Marvin Gaye, was published in 2015.
Hunter Gaye was the daughter of singer-musician Slim Gaillard, known for hits including “Flat Foot Floogie (With a Floy Floy).” She also managed the career of her daughter, Nona Gaye, a singer and actress with credits including Ali, Crash and two Matrix films.
“From the time she met my father, she was exposed to the way he saw this world was aching, and she did her best to preserve his legacy as he was taken from us far too early,” Nona Gaye said in a statement. “She took every moment to speak about every word and every note of his music, and she wanted to make sure everyone knew the man she fell in love with. I will never get to see her again in this life but know she’s in heaven with my father and a spokesperson for us in spirit.”
Survivors also include son Frankie, sister Shawnn, brother Mark and grandson Nolan.
A public event will be announced. Donations in her honor can be made to Arms Around the Child, Breathe With Me Revolution and/or Fund a Mom.
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
Jim Stewart, the founder of Stax Records, the iconic Memphis, TN label that launched the careers of Otis Redding, Carla Thomas, the Bar-Kays and many others, and shaped the sound of soul music, died Monday (Dec. 5) at the age of 92.
Stax Records (formerly Satellite) was founded in 1957 by sibling Stewart and Estelle Axton, and would go on to trigger the “Soul Explosion,” a movement that rumbles on to this day.
Born July 29, 1930, in Middletown, TN, Stewart relocated to Memphis as a young man. He served for two years in the armed forces, then tried his hand at music.
Playing in a band wasn’t his strong suit, but Stewart would forge a home and career with music. An allrounder, he was a producer and engineer in the studio, a record label executive, a promotions man on the go, and, importantly, a team player.
As a producer, he oversaw sessions for Carla Thomas’ “Gee Whiz” (1961), Sam & Dave’s “Hold On, I’m Comin’” (1966) and Rufus Thomas’ “Walking the Dog” (1963), and worked on such albums as Booker T. & The M.G.’s Green Onions (1962), Redding’s Pain in My Heart and Albert King’s Born Under a Bad Sign (1967).
Stax Records — a combination of the first two letters of the owners’ last names — would rent the abandoned Capitol Theater on McLemore Avenue and, from there, make music history.
“Today we lost an important piece of American music history,” comments Michele Smith, vice president of estate & legacy brand management at Craft Recordings and Stax Records.
Stewart’s legacy “will live on through the Stax Records label that he founded, and the artists, musicians, and fans worldwide that love Stax music. I’m not sure if he ever realized the immense impact that he had on soul music across the globe, and he will be sorely missed. Our condolences go out to his friends and family, especially his children and grandchildren.”
The “Soul Explosion” and the Stax philosophy “wasn’t just about penetrating the market with as much music as possible, it was also about releasing the best music possible,” wrote Billboard in 2019, as Stax celebrated a milestone anniversary.
In the segregated south, Stax was something of an artistic oasis, a space for musicians to come together and create.
Among the many artists who bagged hits on Stax and its Volt subsidiary during the 1960s were Rufus and Carla Thomas, Booker T. & the MGs, Sam and Dave, Johnnie Taylor, Albert King, and Redding.
Following the untimely death of Redding in 1967, Stax would recalibrate and unearth a new fresh crop of stars, including Isaac Hayes, the Staple Singers, and the Dramatics.
Financial troubles would see Stax enter into involuntary bankruptcy in 1975. Its output during a 15-year golden period, however, would see Stax establish its reputation as a “critical” piece of “American music history,” reads a statement from the label, as “one of the most popular soul music record labels of all time – second only to Motown in sales and influence, but first in gritty, raw, stripped-down soul music.”
During that period, Stax placed more than 167 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 and 243 hits on the R&B chart, reads an official statement from the label.
Today, the original Stax property at East McClemore is home to the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, with the Stax Music Academy and Soulsville Charter School close by, and many of its classic recordings live on popular culture as samples.
In 2002, the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame celebrated Stewart’s career with the Ahmet Ertegun Award. Also, HBO Documentary Films is said to be in production on STAX, a multiple-part documentary series exploring the legendary label.
Stewart is survived by his wife Evelyn Stewart, sisters Estelle Axton and Mary Lucille McAlpin, three children — Lori Stewart, Shannon Stewart and Jeff Stewart — and by grandchildren Alyssa Luibel and Jennifer Stewart.
Plans for a memorial are pending. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to the Stax Music Academy, which aims to inspire young people and enhance their academic, cognitive, performance, and leadership skills by utilizing music.
Kirstie Alley, who won an Emmy for her role on Cheers and starred in films including Look Who’s Talking, died Monday (Dec. 5).
Alley died of cancer that was only recently discovered, her children True and Lillie Parker said in a post on Twitter. Alley’s manager Donovan Daughtry confirmed the death in an email to The Associated Press.
Alley was 71.
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“As iconic as she was on screen, she was an even more amazing mother and grandmother,” her children’s statement said.
She starred as Rebecca Howe on the NBC sitcom Cheers from 1987 to 1993, after the departure of original star Shelley Long.
She had her own sitcom on the network, Veronica’s Closet, from 1997 to 2000.
Bob McGrath, the Sing Along With Mitch tenor who portrayed the friendly music teacher Bob Johnson for more than four decades as an original castmember on Sesame Street, has died. He was 90.
“Hello Facebook friends, the McGrath family has some sad news to share,” McGrath’s family posted on his Facebook page Sunday (Dec. 4). “Our father Bob McGrath passed away today. He died peacefully at home, surrounded by his family.”
Born on a farm in Illinois, McGrath was one of the four non-Muppet castmembers when Sesame Street debuted on public television stations of Nov. 10, 1969.
With no acting experience, producers always told him to be himself. Over the years, he sang dozens of the show’s signature tunes, including “Sing, Sing a Song” and “The People in Your Neighborhood,” and shared many a scene with Oscar, the grouchy Muppet voiced by Caroll Spinney.
McGrath and Oscar “were sort of like The Odd Couple,” he told Karen Herman during a 2004 conversation for the TV Academy Foundation website The Interviews. “Oscar was always having a rotten day, and I’m ‘Mr. Nice Guy.’”
He remained with the legendary kids show until it was announced in July 2016 that he would not return for its 47th season, though he continued to represent Sesame Street at public events.
“It took me about two minutes before realizing that I wanted to do this show more than anything else I could ever think of,” he said in 2015. “I was so overwhelmed by the brilliance of … Jim and [fellow Muppeteer] Frank Oz and everything else that was going on.”
McGrath and Loretta Long (as nurse Susan Robinson), Matt Robinson (her husband, science teacher Gordon) and Will Lee (candy store owner Mr. Hooper) taped five one-hour pilots that were shown to hundreds of kids across the U.S., and they went on to shoot 130 one-hour episodes during Sesame Street‘s first season.
“We knew we were on to something good almost from the get-go,” he said.
One of five kids, Robert Emmett McGrath (named for an Irish patriot) was born on June 13, 1932, on a farm between the towns of Ottawa and Grand Ridge. His mother, Flora, was a pianist who could play by ear, and when he was 5, he began performing in local theaters. At 9, he won a talent contest at an NBC radio station in Chicago.
McGrath had his own local radio show while he attended Marquette High School, and as a voice major at the University of Michigan School of Music, he became the first freshman soloist of the glee club.
After graduation in 1954, he was attached to the Seventh Army Symphony in Stuttgart, Germany, during his two-year stint in the service. Then, while working on his master’s degree in voice at the Manhattan School of Music, he was hired to teach music appreciation and theory to youngsters at the St. David’s School.
For the next two years, McGrath sang Gregorian chants at funerals; recorded with Igor Stravinsky; performed in the chorus for Leonard Bernstein, Robert Shaw and Fred Waring; did jingles for commercials; and sang on such TV shows as the Hallmark Hall of Fame and The Bell Telephone Hour.
In 1961, McGrath joined the new series Sing Along With Mitch in the 25-man chorus. The NBC program was headlined by Mitch Miller, a classical oboe player and top Columbia Records A&R executive who conducted an orchestra and chorus performing old-time songs. Viewers were presented with lyrics at the bottom of the TV screen so they could sing along, which made for a “great family experience,” McGrath noted.
Two years into the show, McGrath sang “Mother Machree” for a St. Patrick’s Day telecast and was promoted to featured male soloist at double his salary. (Leslie Uggams, who started on the show when she was 17, was a featured female soloist.)
After Sing Along With Mitch concluded its four-year run in 1964, Miller and company performed at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas and then on a 30-date tour of Japan, where the program had aired on NHK television.
“We had four and five thousand teenagers at every concert,” McGrath recalled. “We were quite amazed — why are these teenagers listening to all these old songs? They watched the show because they were very anxious to learn English; we sang clearly, and the [lyrics were on the screen].”
When he sang in Japanese, he was greeted with chants of “Bobu! Bobu!” and learned that there were McGrath fan clubs all over the country.
After the tour ended, he returned to open the Latin Quarter and Copacabana nightclubs in Tokyo and would come back often during the next three years for concerts, albums, commercials and TV shows. He even performed at a small private dinner for Japan prime minister Eisaku Sato.
In the U.S., “voices like mine are not really in season,” he told The New York Times in 1967. “But [in Japan], they say an Irish tenor is just right for sentimental Japanese songs.”
McGrath said he couldn’t “pretend to speak Japanese” but studied song lyrics “phonetically and then with the meaning matched to the words.”
In 1965, he performed “Danny Boy” in Japanese on The Tonight Show — that went over big in his concerts — and later appeared on the game shows To Tell the Truth and I’ve Got a Secret.
McGrath said that his two favorite moments on Sesame Street were the 1978 episode “Christmas Eve on Sesame Street” that riffed on The Gift of the Magi and a poignant 1983 segment that addressed the death of Lee’s Mr. Hooper. (Lee, with whom McGrath had shared a dressing room, had died in December 1982 of a heart attack while the show was on hiatus.)
“On recording day, we rehearsed everything for several hours, totally dry with no emotion, just saying the words,” he recalled. “When it was time to go to tape, we filmed with full, raw emotions, which were very difficult to contain. We were barely able to keep it together, with tears in our eyes, because we were really reliving Will’s wonderful life on Sesame Street for all of those years.”
“When we finished filming, [writer-director] Jon Stone wanted to redo one little section. We got about two minutes into the segment before Jon told us to forget it. We couldn’t take it, we were all just breaking up. So what you see in the episode is the first and only take of that whole show.”
The sweater-loving McGrath also appeared in Sesame Street specials as well as in the films Follow That Bird (1985) and The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland (1999); wrote several children’s books, including 1996’s Uh Oh! Gotta Go! (about potty training) and 2006’s Oops! Excuse Me Please! (about manners); released albums like 2000’s Sing Along With Bob and 2006’s Sing Me a Story; and performed with symphony orchestras all over the country.
He also hosted the annual CTV telethon Telemiracle, which benefits people with special needs in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, every year but one from 1977 until 2015.
Survivors include his wife, Ann, whom he married in 1958 — she was a nursery school teacher at St. David’s when they met — three daughters and two sons, and eight grandchildren.
In his TV Academy Foundation interview, he talked about the “fame” that Sesame Street brought him.
“I had a little boy in a store one time and he grabbed my hand, I thought he had mistaken me for his father,” he recalled. “I said, ‘Hi,’ he said, ‘Hi.’ I said, ‘Do you know my name?’ He said, ‘Yeah, Bob.’ I said, ‘Do you know where I live?’ He said, ‘Sesame Street.’ … I said, ‘Do you know any of my other friends on Sesame Street? He said, ‘Oh, the number seven.’ I figure, I’m right up there with the numerals.”
He also described his “all-time favorite letter” that came to the show: “This parent wrote in and said their little 4- or 5-year-old girl had come running into their room waking them up one morning startled and said, ‘Mommy! Daddy! My pillow!’ And they said, ‘What is it?’ And she said, ‘It’s a rectangle!’ It was the discovery of her life.”
This article originally appeared on The Hollywood Reporter.
Broadway actor Quentin Oliver Lee has died following a battle with stage 4 colon cancer. He was 34.
Lee’s wife, Angie Lee Graham, confirmed his death Thursday in an Instagram post, saying, “He had a smile on his face, and was surrounded by those he loves. It was peaceful, and perfect.”
Lee’s Broadway credits included the 2017 production of Prince of Broadway and the 2021 revival of Caroline, or Change. He played the title role in a national tour of The Phantom of the Opera, and earlier this year was part of an Off-Broadway production of Oratorio for Living Things that had a two-month run after opening in March.
The Phantom of the Opera posted a tribute to Lee on its Instagram account: “The Phantom family is saddened to hear of the passing of Quentin Oliver Lee. Quentin brilliantly lead our North American tour in 2018. Our hearts are with Quentin’s family and friends.”
In June, the performer shared in a Caring Bridge journal entry that he was diagnosed with colon cancer at the end of May. Lee said he had COVID-19 at the beginning of May, but after two weeks, his symptoms didn’t go away, which led him to see a doctor. After his cancer diagnosis, he continued to post updates about his health journey.
After his death, Lee Graham took to the journal to post the same message she shared to Instagram to announce his passing. It read, in part, “He was an incredible man, husband, father, son, brother, friend, singer, actor, and disciple of Christ with great faith in his Father in Heaven. To say ‘he will be dearly missed’ doesn’t reflect the scope of the people and communities he has created and touched.”
This article originally appeared on The Hollywood Reporter.