Wavy-haired Rudy Vallee was the first star—and arguably the father—of the relaxed, intimate singing style known as “crooning.” With his trademark megaphone, which he used to amplify his thin, nasal voice, Vallee became one of the most popular performers of the late-1920s and 1930s, with hits such as “My Time Is Your Time” and “I’m Just a Vagabond Lover.” He admitted, rather candidly, “I never had much of a voice ... one reason for the success was that I was the first articulate singer—people could understand the words.” Known as the “Heigh-ho” man, after his catchphrase, Vallee was one of the earliest artists to generate mass hysteria among his fans. He also established a second career as a Hollywood actor.
Born in July 1901, in Island Pond, Vermont, Hubert Prior Vallee was the son of a pharmacist. He learned to play the saxophone as a teenager by imitating his idol Rudy Wiedhoft. Later, he took the name “Rudy” himself, both in tribute to Wiedhoft and also to play on the romantic image of silent-screen star Rudolph Valentino. Vallee made his professional debut in 1920 with a theatre orchestra in Portland, Maine, and played throughout his college years with various bands at the University of Maine and at Yale. Starting in 1924, he took a year off from school to play sax in London with the Savoy Havana Band.
In 1928, after graduating, Vallee organised a society band, the Yale Collegians, which was soon performing at New York’s chic Heigh-Ho Club. After rich Yale alumni complained that the bandmembers didn’t resemble Yale men, the orchestra was rechristened the Connecticut Yankees. The orchestra became an immediate sensation with its blend of college and dance tunes, spotlighting Vallee’s genteel crooning and sax playing. In 1929, Vallee was hired to star on radio’s first variety show, The Fleishmann Hour, and quickly became one of the biggest stars in show business. His sweet, sentimental style was perfectly suited to the new medium, and his catch-phrase “Heigh-ho everybody” became as famous as his megaphone. Many of Vallee’s biggest hits were introduced on the show, including “Goodnight, Sweetheart,” “Sweet Lorraine,” “The Stein Song,” and Yale University’s “The Whiffenpoof Song.” The song “I’m Just a Vagabond Lover,” featured in his 1929 movie debut Glorifying the American Girl, provided the title for Vallee’s first starring feature film later that year. Another 1929 hit was “My Time Is Your Time,” which was the theme to his long-running radio show. Vallee grew so successful during this period that he founded his own talent agency and a music publishing company.
Vallee moved to Broadway and appeared in the 1931 and 1936 editions of George White’s Scandals, and the 1934 screen version. However, his star was beginning to fade with the emergence of a new breed of natural-sounding crooners like Bing CROSBY and Frank SINATRA. During World War II, Vallee led the California Coastguard Orchestra, and his film career switched to comedy, with hilarious performances in the classic Preston Sturges films The Palm Beach Story (1942) and Mad Wednesday (1947).
In 1962, Vallee starred as a stuffed-shirt industrialist in Frank LOESSER’S hit musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and repeated the role in the 1967 movie version of the show. The New Vaudeville Band’s 1966 novelty hit “Winchester Cathedral” was a tribute to Vallee’s style (complete with megaphone), and the aging crooner repaid the compliment by recording the song during a failed comeback attempt.
Vallee made his last feature film in 1976, and performed his one-man show right up until his death from a heart attack in Los Angeles, California, in July 1986, at the age of 84.
Michael R. Ross
SEE ALSO: FILM MUSICALS; MUSICALS; POPULAR MUSIC.
FURTHER READING
Vallee, Eleanor, and Jill Amadio. My Vagabond Lover: An Intimate Biography of Rudy Vallee (Dallas, TX: Taylor Publishing, 1996);
Vallee, Rudy. Let the Chips Fall (Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1975).
SUGGESTED LISTENING
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying; I’m Just a Vagabond Lover; Rudy Vallee and his Connecticut Yankees; Sing for Your Supper.