BORN ON THIS DAY: ANN-MARGRET

I know Ann-Margret is more than 30 years older than me, but there is something about her I will always be in love with. Her looks. Her personality. Her style. My wife is surprisingly okay with my crush on the legendary actress. I am happy to be commemorating Ann-Margret's 75th birthday today. Ann-Margret was born in Valsjöbyn, Jämtland County, Sweden, the daughter of Anna Regina (née Aronsson) and Carl Gustav Olsson, a native of Örnsköldsvik. She later described Valsjöbyn as a small town "of lumberjacks and farmers high up near the Arctic Circle".Her father worked in the United States during his youth and moved there again in 1942, working with the Johnson Electrical Company, while his wife and daughter stayed behind.

Ann-Margret and her mother moved to the United States in November 1946, and her father took her to Radio City Music Hall on the day they arrived. They settled just outside Chicago, in Wilmette, Illinois. She became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1949 and took her first dance lessons at the Marjorie Young School of Dance, showing natural ability from the start, easily mimicking all the steps. Her parents were supportive; her mother handmade all her costumes. Ann-Margret's mother became a funeral parlor receptionist after her husband suffered a severe injury on his job. While a teenager, Ann-Margret appeared on the Morris B. Sachs Amateur Hour, Don McNeill's Breakfast Club, and Ted Mack's Amateur Hour.

While she attended New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois, she continued to star in theatricals. In 1959, she enrolled at Northwestern University, where she was a member of the sorority Kappa Alpha Theta, but did not graduate. As part of a group known as the Suttletones, she performed at the Mist, a Chicago nightclub, and went to Las Vegas, Nevada, for a promised club date which fell through after the group arrived.

The group finally arrived at the Dunes in Las Vegas, which also headlined Tony Bennett and Al Hirt at that time. George Burns heard of her performance, and she auditioned for his annual holiday show, in which Burns and she performed a soft shoe routine. Variety proclaimed, "George Burns has a gold mine in Ann-Margret ... she has a definite style of her own, which can easily guide her to star status."

In 1961, she filmed a screen test at 20th Century Fox and was signed to a seven-year contract. Ann-Margret made her film debut in a loan-out to United Artists in Pocketful of Miracles, with Bette Davis. It was a remake of the 1933 movie Lady for a Day. Both versions were directed by Frank Capra.

Then came a 1962 remake of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical State Fair, playing the "bad girl" role of Emily opposite Bobby Darin and Pat Boone. She had tested for the part of Margie, the "good girl", but seemed too seductive to the studio bosses, who decided on the switch.The two roles represented two sides of her real-life personality — shy and reserved offstage, but wildly exuberant and sensuous onstage. In her autobiography, the actress wrote that she changed "from Little Miss Lollipop to Sexpot-Banshee" once the music began. Her next starring role, as the all-American teenager Kim from Sweet Apple, Ohio, in Bye Bye Birdie (1963), made her a major star. The rest as they say is history...

HISTORY OF A SONG: LIMEHOUSE BLUES

For some reason I never knew that this song originated in England...

"Limehouse Blues" is a popular 1922 British song written by the London-based duo of Douglas Furber (lyrics) and Philip Braham (music). It was made famous by Gertrude Lawrence. It has been recorded hundreds of times since, and remains in the standard jazz repertory. Some of the most notable recordings include those by Sidney Bechet, Django Reinhardt, Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, Tony Bennett, Stan Kenton, The Dave Brubeck Quartet featuring Gerry Mulligan, the Ellis Marsalis Trio, Chet Atkins with Les Paul and The Mills Brothers. Outside jazz it has been recorded by a number of bluegrass artists, most notably by Reno and Smiley.

The song has been performed in such films as Ziegfeld Follies (by Fred Astaire and Lucille Bremer in Asian makeup), and Star (by Julie Andrews, again, in Asian makeup). The song's title was used for the 1934 film Limehouse Blues.

The song was inspired by the Limehouse district of east London, which housed the London Chinatown of the late 19th and early 20th century (until the London West End Chinatown was established). The Chinese references can be heard in both the lyrics and the melody...

(REFRAIN):

Oh! Limehouse kid

Oh! Oh! Oh! Limehouse kid

Going the way that the rest of them did

Poor broken blossom and nobody's child

Haunting and taunting you're just kind of wild

Oh! Oh! Oh! Limehouse blues

I've seen the real Limehouse blues

Learned from chinkies those sad China blues

Ring your fingers and tears for your crown

That is the story of old China town.

THE LAST DAYS OF NAT KING COLE

Nat King Cole was and is one of the greatest singers of all-time. He is one of those singers whom I love and have a ton of his recordings, but I don't seem to play too much. After researching and compiling this article, I want to remedy that!

A KOOL menthol cigarette smoker, he would often smoke several cigarettes in a row before recording his songs. He believed they helped keep his deep, crooning voice low. He smoked approximately three packs of cigarettes a day.

In September of 1964, Mr. Cole began experiencing weight loss and severe back pain, harbingers of the lung cancer that had not yet been diagnosed.

Following a performance at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada during this period, he collapsed from pain and had to cut the engagement short. Friends urged him to seek medical help a couple of months later while he was working in San Francisco. He had a chest x-ray done at that time and a cancerous tumor was found on his left lung. Doctors gave him months to live and urged him to stop working. He refused and kept working until he was unable to any longer.

He entered St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica on December 9th and began cobalt (radiation) therapy on the 10th. He then had surgery to remove his left lung on January 25, 1965. Sadly, his father died of heart problems on February 1. Throughout Cole's illness his publicists promoted the idea that he would soon be well and working, despite the private knowledge of his terminal condition. Billboard magazine reported that "Nat King Cole has successfully come through a serious operation and ... the future looks bright for 'the master' to resume his career again." On Valentine's Day Cole and his wife briefly left St. John's to drive by the sea. He died at the hospital early in the morning of February 15 at the age of 45.

Cole's funeral was held on February 18 at St. James Episcopal Church on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles; 400 people were present, and thousands gathered outside the church. Hundreds of members of the public had filed past the coffin the day before. Notable honorary pallbearers included Robert F. Kennedy, Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Johnny Mathis, George Burns, Danny Thomas, Jimmy Durante, Bing Crosby, Alan Livingston, Frankie Laine, Steve Allen, and Pat Brown (the governor of California). The eulogy was delivered by Jack Benny, who said that "Nat Cole was a man who gave so much and still had so much to give. He gave it in song, in friendship to his fellow man, devotion to his family. He was a star, a tremendous success as an entertainer, an institution. But he was an even greater success as a man, as a husband, as a father, as a friend."

According to an article published after his death in the Los Angeles Times, Maria knew for several days that her husband was dying, but kept it a secret from the media so that Nat, who watched a lot of television wouldn't see a bad news report. He did not realize he was dying. Right up until the end, he thought he was recovering...

MUSIC BREAK: DEAN MARTIN & NAT KING COLE - LONG LONG AGO

HOLLYWOOD URBAN LEGEND: ORSON WELLES

URBAN LEGEND: Does Hollywood icon Orson Welles still haunt his favorite restaurant?

STATUS: The people who work at the restaurant say it is 100% true!

This actor, producer, director and writer is still Hollywood royalty for his role in what was a brand new industry in his time. He is most well known for playing the lead role in film student must-see Citizen Kane. Orson Welles’ ghost is said to still frequent his favorite restaurant for a cigar and a bourbon. Many of the staff of Melrose Avenue restaurant Sweet Lady Jane’s have had encountered with Welles from beyond the grave.

In these accounts, Orson Welles is generally wearing a wide-brimmed black hat and a dark cape. It is also said that someone interacting with his spirit will pick up the aromas of his favorite bourbon and cigars. Although the dark spirit is somewhat ominous not one restaurant employee has reported a malicious presence along with these paranormal experiences. Sweet Lady Jane’s is still running and diners still have the chance to sit with their favorite Hollywood legend...