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Rudy
Vallee, The First Crooner
November
2002
by Judith Ann Schiff
Judith
Ann Schiff is Chief Research Archivist at the Yale University Library.
One of
the most popular singers of the 20th century actually intended to
become a small-town pharmacist in Maine,
but the saxophone led Rudy
Vallee in a different direction. Born in 1901, Hubert Prior
Vallee formed a band when he was a student at the University of
Maine. He—and his sax—transferred to Yale in 1922, and by
luck, Vallee made contact with Jack Cipriano and Bill Bolton, alums
and musicians who owned the best society orchestra in the area.
Vallee was hired as
first saxophonist and headed a band unit that helped pay his way
through Yale. He also got free meals for playing in the student
orchestra that provided dinner music in the dining hall. At Yale,
Vallee majored in Spanish with the intention of seeking his fortune
in the music business in South America, but in 1924 he ventured east and took a year off to play at the Savoy Hotel in London to
finance the rest of his education.
Returning his junior
year, he was at last able to afford a raccoon coat and a room in
the Memorial Quadrangle. Vallee joined the Yale Collegians band
on a summer vaudeville tour, and in his senior year, he led the
Yale Band and developed a style of singing into a small megaphone
that enabled listeners to hear what he called "my little nasal,
plaintive voice."
Within a year of graduating
in 1927, Vallee was leading a new band, also named the Yale Collegians,
at the exclusive Heigh-Ho Club in Manhattan. His star rose when
a small radio station, WABC, began to broadcast from the club, and
Vallee was asked to serve as announcer. He put to good use the classroom
training he had received "by absorbing the incomparable style of
the great Billy Phelps," and he began every show with his trademark
phrase, "Heigh-ho everybody, this is Rudy Vallee speaking." Vallee's
ability to sing fluently in Spanish as well as French and Italian
added to his romantic persona.
In 1929 he went to
Hollywood to star in The
Vagabond Lover, which became his nickname. He returned to
a new nightclub in New York, the Villa Vallee, which later became
the Copacabana. Throughout the 1930s, millions of fans enjoyed his
movies, recordings, and the radio shows he hosted.
The recordings of "the
Dean of the Crooners" included some of the most popular songs of
the era, among them his theme song, "My Time is Your Time," as well
as the University of Maine "Stein Song," and, of course, "The
Whiffenpoof Song." In 1932, Vallee introduced a new radio show
format, the variety hour, and the top stars of the day appeared
on his programs. Bob Hope and Edgar Bergen debuted with Vallee,
who also showcased African American performers such as Bill Robinson
and Fats Waller.
In World War II, Vallee entered the U.S. Coast Guard and toured as a band leader. He then
returned to radio, broadcasting with Monty Woolley, Class of 1911
and former Dramat coach. By the 1950s, his musical style was no
longer in fashion, but he had a surprising comeback in the 1960s
in How
to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, the hit musical
that included a mock college marching song, "Grand
Old Ivy."
In Vagabond Dreams
Come True, the first of his three autobiographies, Vallee titled
one chapter "Did College Help Me?" After citing the importance of
the Yale faculty and the social contacts he made, the first crooner
gave credit to the well-balanced curriculum that aided him, "not
only in my musical work, but in my general life." While English, economics, history, music, and Spanish were helpful, of key importance
to this consummate entertainer was "the study of psychology."
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