Russ Columbo

Singer Russ Columbo helped set the standard for Italian popular ballad crooners. In his personal appearances, Columbo was trim, debonair, and favored a spotless white suit of the sort George Raft wore in movies of the period. Despite the all-prevailing importance and popularity of Bing Crosby as a singer in the early '30s, it is impossible to imagine the advent of later Italian crooners such as Perry Como and Frank Sinatra without the influence of Russ Columbo. Likewise Columbo's repertoire, some of which he had a hand in creating, was adopted wholeheartedly by other romantic balladeers, including Nat King Cole, Herb Jeffries, and with most enthusiasm, Billy Eckstine. While Columbo was too early to be a true jazz singer, jazz singing itself would not be what it is if Columbo had never been on the scene. Russ Columbo was born in New Jersey, and spent some of his formative years in Philadelphia before the family relocated to California when he was eight. Columbo was a violin prodigy from the age of five, and the move to California was made in part to accommodate his lessons. He made his professional debut as a violinist at the Imperial Theater in San Francisco at the age of nine, and by the age of 17 he was making a living playing in small groups on Hollywood movie sets, providing tempo for silent movie shoots. Columbo also played violin in several Los Angeles-based bands before joining the Gus Arnheim Orchestra in 1928. As talkies went into production, and Columbo quickly found work dubbing the singing voices of non-singing movie stars such as Gary Cooper and Lewis Stone. He also dubbed Betty Compson's violin in the film Street Girl (1929) and made his onscreen singing debut in a bit part in the film Dynamite (1929), directed by Cecil B. DeMille. At this time Columbo...