Gayla Peevey | |
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Background information | |
Birth name | Gayla Rienette Peevey |
Born | Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S. | March 8, 1943
Occupation(s) | Singer |
Instrument(s) | Vocals |
Years active | 1953–1962 |
Labels | Columbia, Joy Records (New York) |
Gayla Rienette Peevey (born March 8, 1943) is a former singer and child star from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. She is best known for her recording of "I Want a Hippopotamus For Christmas" (Columbia 4-40106, 1953). Peevey recorded the novelty song when she was 10 years old. In 1960, under the name Jamie Horton, she had a minor hit with the song "Robot Man", a Connie Francis cover. [1]
Her family moved to Ponca City, Oklahoma, in 1948. Prior to moving to California, Gayla attended Columbus Elementary School. [2] Peevey graduated from San Diego State University with a Bachelor of Education degree. [3] She eventually left teaching. [3] She is married to Cliff Henderson. They have a daughter, Sydney Forest, and three grandchildren. [4] Following her retirement from performing, Peevey runs her own jingle advertisement company and sings in church. [5]
The Oklahoma City Zoo capitalized upon the popularity of "I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas" with a fundraising campaign to "buy a hippo for Gayla". The fund raised $3,000 (equivalent to US$32,813 in 2022), and a baby hippopotamus named Matilda was purchased and given to Peevey, which she then donated to the zoo in 1953. [6] Matilda spent 45 years in the Oklahoma City Zoo, and then died at age 47 from a heart attack in 1998 while being transferred to the Walt Disney World's Disney's Animal Kingdom, in Orlando, Florida. [7]
Year | Title | Label | Single | Matrix No. |
---|---|---|---|---|
1953 | I Want a Hippopotamus For Christmas /Are My Ears On Straight | Columbia Records | 40106 | CO49818/CO49819 |
Wish I Wuz A Whisker (On The Easter Bunny's Chin)/Three Little Bunnies | 40182 | RHCO10747/RHCO10748 | ||
Kitty In The Basket (duet with Jimmy Boyd)/I'm So Glad (duet with Jimmy Boyd) | 40218 | RHCO10753/RHCO10754 | ||
Upsy Down Town/A Dog Named Joe | 40264 | CO49820/CO49821 | ||
1954 | Angel In The Christmas Play/Got A Cold In The Node For Christmas | 40364 | RHCO33252/RHCO33253 | |
Daddy's Report Card/The Night I Ran Away | 40425 | RHCO10749/RHCO10750 | ||
1955 | 77 Santas/Rubberlegs (The Knock-Kneed Monkey) | 40602 | RZSP33598/RZSP33599 | |
1957 | I Want You To Be My Guy/Too Young To Have A Broken Heart | 40932 | JZSP41539/JZSP41540 | |
1958 | That's What I Learned In School/Do It Again | 41027 | JZSP42215/JZSP42214 |
Year | Title | Label | Single | Matrix No. |
---|---|---|---|---|
1959 | My Little Marine/Missin' | Joy Records (New York) | 234 | K90W-8507/K90W-8508 |
1960 | Where's My Love/Heartbreakin' Doll | 237 | KS-193/KS-194 | |
Just Say So/There Goes My Love | 240 | L90W-2188 | ||
Robot Man/We're Through – We're Finished | 241 | JR-7051/JR-7031 | ||
What Should A Teen Heart Do/Hands Off, He's Mine | 245 | |||
1961 | When It Comes To Love/Yes, I'll Be Your Girl | 252 | ||
Going, Going, Going Gone/They're Playing Our Song (contains elements of 16 Candles) | 258 | JR-7103/JR-7101 | ||
Dear Jane/Only Forever | 266 | JR-7073/JR-7122 | ||
1962 | Go Shout It From A Mountain/Oh Love (Stop Knockin' On My Door) | 269 |
The hippopotamus, also shortened to hippo, further qualified as the common hippopotamus, Nile hippopotamus, or river hippopotamus, is a large semiaquatic mammal native to sub-Saharan Africa. It is one of only two extant species in the family Hippopotamidae, the other being the pygmy hippopotamus. Its name comes from the ancient Greek for "river horse" (ἱπποπόταμος).
The pygmy hippopotamus or pygmy hippo is a small hippopotamid which is native to the forests and swamps of West Africa, primarily in Liberia, with small populations in Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Ivory Coast. It has been extirpated from Nigeria.
Ponca City is a city in Kay County in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The city was named after the Ponca tribe. Ponca City had a population of 24,424 in the 2020 census, down from 25,387 at the time of the 2010 census.
Brenda Mae Tarpley, known professionally by the stage name Brenda Lee, is an American singer. Primarily performing rockabilly, pop, country and Christmas music, she achieved her first Billboard hit aged 12 in 1957 and was given the nickname "Little Miss Dynamite". Some of Lee's most successful songs include "Sweet Nothin's", "I'm Sorry", "I Want to Be Wanted", "Speak to Me Pretty", "All Alone Am I" and "Losing You". Her festive song "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree", recorded in 1958, topped the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 2023, making Lee the oldest artist ever to top the chart and breaking several chart records.
Clara Ann Fowler, better known by her stage name Patti Page, was an American singer. Primarily known for pop and country music, she was the top-charting female vocalist and best-selling female artist of the 1950s, selling over 100 million records during a six-decade-long career. She was often introduced as "the Singin' Rage, Miss Patti Page". New York WNEW disc-jockey William B. Williams introduced her as "A Page in my life called Patti".
Connie Stevens is an American actress and singer. Born in Brooklyn, New York, to musician parents, Stevens was raised there until age 12, when she was sent to live with family friends in rural Missouri after she witnessed a murder in the city. In 1953, at age 15, Stevens relocated with her father to Los Angeles.
Kay Starr was an American singer who enjoyed considerable success in the late 1940s and 1950s. She was of Iroquois and Irish heritage. Starr performed multiple genres, such as pop, jazz, and country, but her roots were in jazz.
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Zoila Augusta Emperatriz Chávarri del Castillo, known as Yma Sumac, was a Peruvian-born vocalist, composer, producer, actress and model. "Ima sumaq" means "how beautiful" in Quechua. She has also been called Queen of Exotica and is considered a pioneer of world music. She won a Guinness World Record for the Greatest Range of Musical Value in 1956. Her debut album, Voice of the Xtabay (1950), peaked at number one in the Billboard 200, and its single, "Virgin of the Sun God ", reached number one on the UK Singles Chart. It sold a million copies worldwide, becoming an international success in the 1950s. Albums like Legend of the Sun Virgin (1952), Fuego del Ande (1959) and Mambo! (1955), were other successes.
Kristin Dawn Chenoweth is an American actress and singer, with credits in musical theatre, film, and television. In 1999, she won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her performance as Sally Brown in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown on Broadway. In 2003, Chenoweth received a second Tony Award nomination for originating the role of Glinda in the musical Wicked. Her television roles include Annabeth Schott in NBC's The West Wing and Olive Snook on the ABC comedy drama Pushing Daisies, for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 2009. She also starred in the ABC TV series GCB in 2012, played Lavinia in Trial & Error in 2018, and played the characters Mildred Layton and Miss Codwell in the Apple TV+ musical comedy Schmigadoon! in 2021 and 2023, respectively.
Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park is located near Homosassa Springs, Florida, in the United States. The park is one of the notable locations in the state to view manatees. Visitors can get close to the animals on a floating observatory. Black bears, bobcats, white-tailed deer, American alligators, and river otters can also been seen in the park. The park is also home to the hippopotamus Lu, famously known for his performances in many movies for the past 40 years. The park is officially named Ellie Schiller Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park in honor of Elmyra Felburn Schiller, a benefactor of the Florida state park system.
"I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" is a Christmas novelty song written by John Rox (1902–1957) and performed by 10-year-old Gayla Peevey in 1953. The song peaked at number 24 on Billboard magazine's pop chart in December 1953.
Billy, or William Johnson Hippopotamus, was a pygmy hippopotamus given to U.S. President Calvin Coolidge. Captured in Liberia, he was given to Coolidge by Harvey S. Firestone in 1927. Billy spent most of his life in the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. In addition to his fame as an exotic presidential pet—which afforded him a trip to the 1939 New York World's Fair—Billy is also notable as the common ancestor to most pygmy hippos in American zoos. By the time of his death in 1955, Billy had sired 23 calves, 13 of whom survived at least a year.
The Museum of Osteology, located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S., is a private museum devoted to the study of bones and skeletons (osteology). This museum displays over 450 skeletons of animal species from all over the world. With another 7,000 specimens as part of the collection, but not on display, this is the largest privately held collection of osteological specimens in the world. The museum is an entity of its parent company, Skulls Unlimited International.
Gayla is a given name. Notable people with the name include:
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Fiona is a hippopotamus born at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, on January 24, 2017. The first Nile hippo imaged on ultrasound pre-natally, and the first born at the zoo in 75 years, she was born prematurely and cared for with the assistance of the Cincinnati Children's Hospital.
John Jefferson Rox (1907-1957) was an American composer and lyricist. He was born in 1907 in Des Moines, Iowa.
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