Star Facts
  • Category Radio

    Address 1724 Vine Street

    Ceremony date 02/08/1960

About
Alec Templeton
Born:
1909-04-07,
Cardiffles,
United Kingdom
Education:
Any Education
Ethnicity:
Caucasian
Death Date:
1969-12-31
Addition Websites

Alec Templeton

Alec Templeton was a Welsh composer, pianist and satirist. Blind from birth, he studied at London’s Royal Academy.

In 1936, he moved from Wales to the United States as a member of Jack Hylton’s Jazz Band, where he played with a number of orchestras and gave his first radio performances on The Rudy Vallée Show, The Chase and Sanborn Hour, Kraft Music Hall and The Magic Key.

Signing a recording contract with RCA Victor in 1939, he made a string of amusing sides including “Man with New Radio,” “Mendelssohn Mows ’em Down,” and a pseudo-operatic rendering of “And the Angels Sing”. A set of three 78rpm records called “Musical Portraits” was issued by RCA Victor as catalog number P-19; it continued in the catalog until the late 40s, and included “Mozart Matriculates.” He also did six sides for Columbia in August of 1940, including an instrumental entitled “Redwoods at Bohemian Grove”. In 1942 he did eight sides for Decca, six of them released as a three-record set with catalog number A-314.

His radio program, Alec Templeton Time, sponsored by Alka-Seltzer, was first broadcast from 1939 to 1941, returning in 1943 and 1946?47. It was sometimes known as The Alec Templeton Show. Guests included Kay Lorene and Pearl Bailey. He memorized the scripts for his shows by having them read to him 20 times. From 3 June to 26 August 1955, It’s Alec Templeton Time appeared on the DuMont Television Network. Templeton’s compositions include “Scarlatti Stoops to Conga,” and “Bach Goes to Town” which was covered by both Benny Goodman’s band and the Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street : he himself would record that tune for the obscure “Gramophone Shops” label.

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