Entertainment

Madcap singer and widow Musician Spike Jones is 97 years old – The Hollywood Reporter

Helen Greyco, the pop singer and actress, has appeared on records, tours, radio shows and TV shows as a chic contrast to her famous band husband Spike Jones. , passed away. She is 97 years old.

Grayco died Saturday of cancer at her home in Los Angeles, her son, producer Spike Jones Jr., longtime Creative Arts Emmy Award producer, recounted. The Hollywood Reporter.

Jones Sr was about to go on a tour with his bandmates City Slickers when he approached Grayco with a job offer after seeing her perform with Stan Kenton’s orchestra at the Hollywood Palladium in 1946. .

Grayco recalled in a 2009 interview: “I was deeply offended when Spike first asked to hire me. “He just did ‘Cocktails for Two’ and all the stuff he’s known for. ‘I don’t know what position I might fit in your team. I’m not a comedian,’ I told him.

“He said, ‘No, I’ll do my own thing. You will have your arrangement. You will do completely 15, 20 minutes separate from the program. ‘ They needed something to calm everyone down. And that’s how we’ve always worked since then. ‘ In the Spike Jones TV show, even there I see the opposite.”

For the uninitiated, Jones’ madcap songs often use sound effects such as gunshots, whistles, cows, squeals, hiccups, burps, sneezes, and in the case of “” Der Fuehrer’s Face”, raspberries.

Grayco married the musical satire writer in 1948, and she is a regular on versions of The Spike Jones Show at NBC in 1954 and at CBS in 1957 and 1961. Meanwhile, she recorded albums like 1957 After midnight and in 1958 Woman in red.

Jones died in May 1965 at their Beverly Hills home at the age of 53.

The tenth of eleven children, Helen Greco was born on September 20, 1924 in Tacoma, Washington. She sang on a local radio show and came to Hollywood at age 8 with a letter of recommendation from Larry Crosby to her brother Bing. (Crosbys is also from Tacoma.)

She has her own radio show, Festival timeon KHJ, and appeared alongside Allan Jones in A Night at the Opera (1935), starring the Marx Brothers, and in That’s a certain age (1938) at Universal, where she was signed on to act as the next Deanna Durbin.

As a teenager, Grayco performed with bandmates Chuck Cabot and Red Nichols, then toured with Kenton’s orchestra before joining Jones.

Watch her sing “Teach Me Tonight” on NBC’s Colgate Comedy Hour in 1955 here.

Growing up with his mom and dad “wasn’t bad,” Jones Jr. speak. “Their is a whole new kind of entertainment and to hang out with my parents [during this time was amazing]. “

After her husband’s death, Grayco topped the Copa in New York and performed on NBC’s The Dean Martin Show before she married Bill Rosen, owner of Gatsby’s in New York, in 1968. When he opened another Gatsby’s in Brentwood, LA, she used to sing there. (Rosen died in 2002).

In addition to her son – he has worked continuously for 20 Creative Arts Emmys and received an honorary Emmy award – survivors include her two daughters, Leslie Ann Jones, director of recording and sound scoring. music at Disney’s Skywalker Sound, and Gina Maria Jones; grandchildren Taylor and Nicholas; stepdaughter Linda; and stepdaughter Alexandra.

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