Dinah Shore (Feb. 29, 1916-Feb 24, 1994) was born in Winchester, Tennessee, as Frances “Fanny” Rose Shore to Russian immigrant shopkeepers Solomon Shore and his wife Anna Stein. As a child, she contracted polio from which she recovered but with a deformed foot and limp. Loving to sing as a child, Shore entertained customers at her father’s store. The family moved to McMinnville and then Nashville, Tennessee, where Shore became a cheerleader at Hume-Fogg High School. She later enrolled at Vanderbilt University, where she was a member of the predominantly Jewish sorority Alpha Epsilon Phi. She graduated in 1938 with a degree in sociology.
She made her radio debut on Nashville’s WSM then moved to New York, where in auditions she so often sang “Dinah” (“Dinah, is there anyone finer In the state of Carolina..”) that she became nicknamed Dinah Shore. Radio station WNEW hired her as a vocalist where she sang with Frank Sinatra, and recorded with the Xavier Cugat orchestra.
CBS radio programs brought her to the attention of Eddie Cantor, who signed her as a regular on his Time to Smile radio show in 1940. Three years later, Shore appeared in a movie that starred Cantor, Thank Your Lucky Stars. During World War II, Shore performed on Paul Whiteman Presents and became a favorite with U.S. troops. “Blues in the Night,” her first number one hit, sold over one million copies. In 1946, she moved to Columbia Records with “Shoo-Fly Pie and Apple Pan Dowdy.” In 1948 her song “Button and Bows” was number one for ten weeks. Other number-one hits were “The Gypsy” and “The Anniversary Song.” (“Oh how we danced on the night we were wed”) In 1948, her radio show Call for Music started on CBS radio and migrated to NBC radio. In 1949, she and Buddy Clark recorded “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” Other songs during this period were “Laughing on the Outside (Crying on the Inside),” “(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons,” “Doin’ What Comes Natur’lly” and “Dear Hearts and Gentle People.” She also appeared as a musical guest in the Danny Kaye film Up in Arms as well as in Follow the Boys, Till the Crowds Roll By, and Belle of the Yukon.
Dinah’s first marriage was to actor George Montgomery in 1943 and lasted through 1963, when they divorced. Their daughter Melissa Montgomery became an actress. Another child was John David “Jody” Montgomery, who was adopted. She had a brief second marriage to tennis player Maurice Smith, and subsequently dated Dick Martin, Eddie Fisher, Rod Taylor, and Burt Reynolds.
In the 1950s, Shore continued to sing, with “My Heart Cries for You,” “Sweet Violets, “A Penny a Kiss,” “Blue Canary,” “Love and Marriage” “Whatever Lola Wants, Lola Gets” and “Chantez, Chantez” adding to her best-known repertoire. In 1951, she debuted The Dinah Shore Show on NBC television, and in 1956 The Dinah Shore Chevy Show, a variety show that continued through 1961. She sang with Ella Fitzgerald, Mahalia Jackson, Peggy Lee, Frank Sinatra, and Pearl Bailey. When Tennessee Ernie Ford appeared on the show, she kiddingly introduced him as Tennessee Ernie Chevrolet.
After Chevrolet dropped its sponsorship, the American Dairy Association and Green Stamps sponsored the show which reverted to the name of The Dinah Shore Show. Her guests included a young Barbra Streisand as well as Nat “King” Cole, Bing Crosby, Jack Lemmon, Boris Karloff, Betty Hutton and Art Carney. At the end of each show, she threw an enthusiastic kiss to the audience, exclaiming “Mwah’ as she did so.
She hosted the daytime TV show Dinah’s Place from 1970 to 1974, and Dinah! (later called Dinah and Friends) from 1974 to 1980. Instead of it being a “talk show,” she called it a “do show” in which guests would demonstrate an unexpected skill. Sinatra shared his spaghetti sauce recipe; Vice President Spiro Agnew accompanied her on keyboard in the song “Sophisticated Lady;” and Ginger Rogers showed Shore how to throw a clay pot on a potter’s wheel. Shore herself had a skill in addition to singing. She wrote cookbooks, including Someone’s In the Kitchen with Dinah. Shore was a golfer who founded the Colgate Dinah Shore Golf Tournament in 1972, which later became the Chevron Championship on the LPGA tour. In 1994, Shore was elected an honorary member of the LPGA Hall of Fame. Three years earlier, she was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame.
Shore died of ovarian cancer and her body was cremated. Her ashes were interred at the Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City and the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Cathedral City, reflecting the fact that she had lived in the Los Angeles and Palm Springs areas.
Tomorrow, March 1: Yitzhak Rabin
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SDJW condensation of a Wikipedia article