Mary Eastman (singer)

Last updated
Mary Eastman
Born
Mary Hewitt

(1911-07-21)July 21, 1911
Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.
DiedFebruary 21, 1969(1969-02-21) (aged 57)
Delray Beach, Florida, U.S.
Education Juilliard School
Occupationsinger
SpouseLee Semmes Eastman
Children2

Mary Hewitt Tippett Eastman (born July 21, 1911) was an American lyric soprano [1] and "a highly popular performer" on radio. [2]

Contents

Early years

Eastman was born Mary Hewitt [3] on July 21, 1911, in Kansas City, Missouri. [1] When she was a child she went to live with her uncle and, at his request, began calling him "Father". In 1937 she said, "In fact, hardly anyone knows to this day that he's not my real father." [3] The announcement of her marriage said that she was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John F. Tippett. [4] Tippett was president of International Products Corporation, and she was of French and English descent. [1] .

Eastman's mother was a singer who performed on radio in its early days. [5] Her siblings were all musically talented, and she could play piano by age 7 although she had no lessons on the instrument. She was more interested in singing, however. Her family could not afford vocal lessons, but her uncle provided that opportunity. He was moving from South America to Chicago, and he offered to take her with him so that she could study music there, which she did. That move led to her taking her uncle's last name and looking on him as her father. [3] She began taking vocal lessons at age 10, and she studied for three years at Chicago Musical College. [1] Her studies there ended when her uncle had to move to New York, and she accompanied him. [3] In New York she studied music under Frank La Forge, [1] and attended the Juilliard School. [6]

Career

Eastman performed in stage productions and in concerts before debuting on radio in 1930. [1] Her Broadway debut also occurred in 1930 with her performance in the musical revue Shoot the Works. [7] She began singing on CBS in 1932. [8] From 1938 to 1941 she was the featured female singer on Saturday Night Serenade . [2] Other programs on which she sang included The Ford Summer Hour , [9] Waltz Time, [10] Melody Masterpiece, [11] and Voice of America. [12] In 1938 Eastman signed a contract with the World Broadcasting System to make a series of transcriptions of operettas. [13] She began using Eastman as her professional name when she began performing with Lawrence Tibbett. The similar sounds of their last names led to a coin toss to determine which one would change. Tibbett won the toss, so Mary Tippett began performing as Mary Eastman. [14]

By 1939, Eastman's repertoire included:

Personal life and death

She married Lee Semmes Eastman, an executive with the Packard Motor Car Company, on August 8, 1932, in New Rochelle, New York. [4] They had two children, a daughter and a son. [15]

On February 21, 1969, Eastman died at the age of 57 at Bethesda Hospital in Delray Beach, Florida, of injuries sustained 11 days earlier in an automobile accident in that city, where she and Lee Eastman had maintained a winter residence. [6] Survived by her husband and children, as well as two brothers and two sisters, her funeral was held—and her remains interred—in Greenwich, Connecticut, where the Eastmans had resided during the rest of the year. [15]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martha Scott</span> American actress (1912–2003)

Martha Ellen Scott was an American actress. She was featured in major films such as Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956), and William Wyler's Ben-Hur (1959), playing the mother of Charlton Heston's character in both films. She originated the role of Emily Webb in Thornton Wilder's Our Town on Broadway in 1938 and later recreated the role in the 1940 film version, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alice Brady</span> American actress (1892–1939)

Alice Brady was an American actress of stage and film. She began her career in the theatre in 1911, and her first important success came on Broadway in 1912 when she created the role of Meg March in the original production of Marian de Forest's Little Women. As a screen actress she first appeared in silent films and was one of the few actresses to survive the transition into talkies. She worked until six months before her death from cancer in 1939. Her films include My Man Godfrey (1936), in which she plays the flighty mother of Carole Lombard's character, and In Old Chicago (1937) for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Victor Herbert</span> Irish-American composer (1859–1924)

Victor August Herbert was an American composer, cellist and conductor of English and Irish ancestry and German training. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor, he is best known for composing many successful operettas that premiered on Broadway from the 1890s to World War I. He was also prominent among the Tin Pan Alley composers and was later a founder of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP). A prolific composer, Herbert produced two operas, a cantata, 43 operettas, incidental music to 10 plays, 31 compositions for orchestra, nine band compositions, nine cello compositions, five violin compositions with piano or orchestra, 22 piano compositions and numerous songs, choral compositions and orchestrations of works by other composers, among other music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tay Garnett</span> American film director and writer (1894–1977)

William Taylor "Tay" Garnett was an American film director, writer, and producer. He made nearly 50 films in various genres during his 55-year career, The Postman Always Rings Twice and China Seas being two of the most commercially successful. In his later years, he focused mainly on television.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rita Johnson</span> American actress (1913–1965)

Rita Ann Johnson was an American actress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spring Byington</span> American actress (1886–1971)

Spring Dell Byington was an American actress. Her career included a seven-year run on radio and television as the star of December Bride. She was a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract player who appeared in films from the 1930s to the 1960s. Byington received a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Penelope Sycamore in You Can't Take It with You (1938).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Irene Tedrow</span> American character actress (1907-1995)

Irene Tedrow was an American character actress in stage, film, television and radio.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Lee (actress)</span> American actress and singer

Mary Lee was a big band singer and B movie actress from the late 1930s into the 1940s, appearing mostly in Westerns. She did not make any screen appearances after 1944.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patricia Ellis</span> American actress (1918–1970)

Patricia Ellis was an American film actress from 1932 to 1939, who then had a brief singing career until 1941.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eleanor Keaton</span> American dancer and variety show performer (1918–1998)

Eleanor Ruth Keaton was an American dancer and variety show performer. She was an MGM contract dancer in her teens and became the third wife of silent-film comedian Buster Keaton at the age of 21. She is credited with rehabilitating her husband's life and career. The two performed at the Cirque Medrano in Paris and on European tours in the 1950s; she also performed with him on The Buster Keaton Show in the early 1950s. After his death in 1966, she helped ensure Keaton's legacy by giving many interviews to biographers, film historians, and journalists, sharing details from his personal life and career, and also attended film festivals and celebrations honoring Keaton. In her later years, she bred champion St. Bernard dogs, was a gag consultant for Hollywood filmmakers, and was an invited speaker at silent-film screenings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dorothy Peterson</span> American actress

Bergetta "Dorothy" Peterson was an American actress. She began her acting career on Broadway before appearing in more than eighty Hollywood films.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbara Jo Allen</span> American actress (1906–1974)

Barbara Jo Allen was an American actress. She was also known as Vera Vague, the spinster character she created and portrayed on radio and in films during the 1940s and 1950s. She based the character on a woman she had seen delivering a PTA literature lecture in a confused manner. As Vague, she popularized the catchphrase "You dear boy!"

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anne Seymour (actress)</span> American actress (1909–1988)

Anne Seymour was an American film and television character actress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary LaRoche</span> American actress and singer (1920-1999)

Mary LaRoche was an American actress and singer best known for her roles in the feature films Gidget (1959) and Bye Bye Birdie (1963) and for her performances as a guest star and supporting character on American television series between the early 1950s and mid-1970s, including on such popular series as The Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Perry Mason, and Gunsmoke.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Dobson Altemus</span> American socialite

Elizabeth Altemus Eastman was a Philadelphia socialite and political organizer, "an effective influence for progress and betterment in the civic, social, and political affairs of Philadelphia."

Betty Ruth Smith was an American actress best known for her work in old-time radio.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katherine Bell Tippetts</span> American clubwoman

Emily Katherine Bell Tippetts was an American businesswoman and clubwoman based in St. Petersburg, Florida. She was one of the first women to run for a seat in the Florida legislature, in 1922. As the founder and president of the St. Petersburg chapter of the National Audubon Society for over 30 years, and in various statewide and national leadership positions with women's clubs, Tippetts helped establish protective legislation and bird sanctuaries throughout Florida.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rita Gould</span> American actress (1890–1981)

Rita Gould was an American singer and actress, born in Odessa. She performed in vaudeville in the 1920s, and in American films in the 1930s and 1940s. She was also known for her costumes and for the hats she made, and was a Christian evangelist in her middle years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Claire Rochelle</span> American actress

Claire Rochelle was an American film actress. She played the female lead in a number of westerns and worked as a stunt woman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Muriel Kirkland</span> American actress

Muriel Kirkland was an American actress.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Mary Eastman to be back Oct. 1st" . The Daily Republican. Illinois, Belvidere. September 10, 1938. p. 4. Retrieved October 22, 2024– via Newspapers.com.
  2. 1 2 Dunning, John (May 7, 1998). On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio. Oxford University Press, USA. p. 598. ISBN   978-0-19-507678-3 . Retrieved October 22, 2024.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Menken, Harriet (August 1937). "Is Fate Against Me?: Whenever opportunity beckons her, Mary Eastman must turn away!". Radio Stars. pp. 42, 78. Retrieved October 25, 2024.
  4. 1 2 "Mary H. Tippett Becomes Bride Of Lee S. Eastman At Church Of Holy Family" . The Standard-Star. New York, New Rochelle. August 8, 1932. p. 5. Retrieved October 22, 2024– via Newspapers.com.
  5. ↑ "Set Baily Rites" . Kansas City Journal. August 12, 1938. p. 9. Retrieved October 25, 2024– via Newspapers.com.
  6. 1 2 Obituaries: Mrs. Lee S. Eastman; Was Noted Singer". The Daily Item. February 26, 1969. p. 12. Retrieved October 27, 2024.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 "Saturday Night Serenade: Biography Of Mary Eastman" . Pensacola News Journal. March 26, 1939. p. 18. Retrieved October 25, 2024– via Newspapers.com.
  8. ↑ Morgan, Alfred Lindsay (November 1940). "Sound Waves Over the World". The Etude. p. 737. Retrieved October 25, 2024.
  9. ↑ "Sunday Soloist" . Harrisburg Telegraph. August 9, 1941. p. 24. Retrieved October 25, 2024– via Newspapers.com.
  10. ↑ "Fridays". Radio Stars. July 1937. p. 51. Retrieved October 25, 2024.
  11. ↑ "(radio listings)". Radio Mirror. November 1934. p. 9. Retrieved October 25, 2024.
  12. ↑ "Thursday". Radio Mirror. May 1934. p. 53. Retrieved October 25, 2024.
  13. ↑ "Mary Eastman to Disk Series of Operettas". Radio Daily. January 26, 1938. p. 1. Retrieved October 25, 2024.
  14. ↑ Ross, George (October 7, 1938). "In New York" . The Kokomo Tribune. p. 4. Retrieved October 23, 2024– via Newspapers.com.
  15. 1 2 "Mrs. Lee S. Eastman". The Kansas City Times. February 24, 1969. p. 12. Retrieved October 27, 2024.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.