It has been over 65 years since greater than 1,500 entertainers had been chosen for immortality on the sidewalks of Hollywood. Solely a pair dozen or so of these unique inductees are nonetheless with us. Amongst a lot of his endurance-based accolades, bandleader Ray Anthony is without doubt one of the oldest surviving members of that preliminary class of Hollywood Stroll of Fame stars. (Actress Marsha Hunt, who would have been a senior to Anthony’s freshman, holds the document at 104.)
On Jan. 20, Anthony celebrated his one centesimal birthday surrounded by pals and Perry Anthony, his lone descendant, a son from his transient marriage to actress Mamie Van Doren. Anthony’s Hollywood Hills property stays as he envisioned it in 1975, full with lush carpets, a sunken eating room and a view of the ocean, climate allowing. Amid balloons formed just like the quantity “100” and the arrival of a pizza adorned with the quantity inscribed in olives, Anthony remarked that “they actually needed to remind me of my age!” Although his listening to has diminished significantly, his reminiscence remains to be sharp. Amid a flurry of properly wishers chiming in by phone and on the entrance door, Anthony took time to replicate on his century of tales with a sly sense of self and appreciation for all that he had seen alongside the way in which.
After his father handed 5-year-old Ray Anthony a trumpet of their Cleveland house, he was hooked on the horn, ultimately changing into a teenage disciple of Harry James, the jazz trumpet-playing actor-bandleader who was solely a half-dozen years older than him. Whereas nonetheless a young person, Anthony discovered himself thrust into the massive time as a member of the Glenn Miller Orchestra, a cocky brassman on a bandstand filled with world-weary males. He lasted lower than two years with the band and was notably fired twice, his robust chops seemingly interesting sufficient for a second probability however not a 3rd. “A number of the musicians teased me for being so younger within the primary band,” recalled Anthony. “He was powerful nevertheless it’s a enterprise. You don’t have a lot time to do something however comply with the traces.”
By the top of 1941, the acceleration of the warfare had disrupted the frivolity of the massive band scene and lots of musicians supplied their skills to the house entrance. In consequence, Anthony discovered himself within the Navy, entertaining the troops on the Royal Hawaiian Resort in Honolulu, then nonetheless a tense battleground.
Anthony emerged from the warfare along with his Hollywood-handsome options and the boldness of a veteran showman, spending the following dozen years on televisions and radios throughout America. His resemblance to Cary Grant was a punchline for each males. The Ray Anthony Orchestra was a prolific ensemble, releasing numerous dance singles within the early Nineteen Fifties, together with “The Hokey Pokey” and “The Bunny Hop” — swinging trifles that captured a nationwide viewers nearly instantly. His contributions to the misplaced artwork of the boogie (“Trumpet Boogie,” “Mr. Anthony’s Boogie,” “Massive Band Boogie,”) and the foxtrot, which had been typically paired with just a few dance steps from the enterprising Arthur Murray, had been equally profitable. Anthony’s occasional trumpet solo breaks had been melodic and deliberate however much less the results of improvisatory brilliance and extra supposed to intensify the dance ground frenzy with drive fairly than filigree. The hours had been rigorous and the touring was exhausting, 18 band members and their gear passing from coast to coast with out pause. “If I needed to go, they needed to go,” Anthony joked.
Maybe probably the most legendary of Anthony’s exploits was the 1952 launch social gathering for his orchestra’s swooning single “Marilyn,” written for Ms. Monroe, who had but to turn out to be a family identify. Befitting the glamour of her ingénue profile, Monroe arrived on the social gathering in a Bell helicopter sporting a radiant pink costume that may have been seen lots of of ft above the group, lengthy earlier than any of the company knew who was arriving. Even Anthony wasn’t apprised of her deliberate attendance.In response as to if her then-suitor Joe DiMaggio had joined the opposite high-profile company resembling Mickey Rooney and Sammy Davis Jr., Anthony famous with fun that he “wasn’t invited.” These little helicopters might solely include a lot persona, and the lately unearthed pictures of Monroe and Anthony, trumpet in hand, depart little room for anybody else.
Anthony’s adoration of spiky-heeled Hollywood blonds was a constant by line in his private and non-private life. His tumultuous marriage to famed bombshell Van Doren in 1955 was tabloid fodder for the remainder of the last decade earlier than issues spectacularly imploded. However Anthony’s son, Perry, was the constructive results of their transient coupling. Throughout the birthday revelry, Perry fondly reminisced in regards to the Beatles albums his father introduced house from work. “I want I nonetheless had them now,” he remarked wistfully.
Towards the center of the Nineteen Fifties, Anthony studied with performing academics Estelle Harman and Sanford Meisner. “I wanted to get all the assistance I might get,” Anthony remarked. Whereas performing was by no means a big focus of his profession, he appeared in a number of notable movies together with “Excessive Faculty Confidential”and the thrice Oscar-nominated “Daddy Lengthy Legs”that includes Fred Astaire. Nevertheless it was his look within the 1956 teenage call-to-arms “The Lady Can’t Assist It”that has had the longest impression.
In one of many funniest scenes in that film, Jayne Mansfield, in the course of a recording session, purchases an apple from a merchandising machine positioned contained in the recording studio and sits down with the Ray Anthony Orchestra as they bounce by “Rock Across the Rock Pile.” On the shut of the tune, Mansfield’s character, whose voice has already shattered glass earlier within the movie, leans into the microphone for her half as a wailing police siren. The performances by Little Richard and Eddie Cochran spurred impressionable younger musicians like Paul McCartney and John Lennon to pursue their rock ‘n’ roll desires, nevertheless it was Anthony’s field workplace bankability that helped to promote the movie to producers.
By the beginning of the swinging ‘60s, Anthony had already vigorously swung his manner by the ‘40s and the ‘50s. Throughout almost 20 years with Capitol Information, he recorded lots of of tracks for the label, whose roster included Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole when he arrived and Grand Funk Railroad and the Seaside Boys by the point he left.
Anthony continued to carry out usually into his 90s, generally main his personal unit, generally becoming a member of a super-group of massive band veterans. He saved up an eight-decade streak of tv appearances as a type of Barney Rubble to his buddy Hugh Hefner’s Fred Flintstone on E!’s “The Women Subsequent Door” within the early 2010s, however largely loved the glow of his unparalleled profession as a swinging mid-century American cad, poolside events above Sundown Boulevard on the prepared.
Now, 60-plus years after receiving his Hollywood star, Anthony’s trumpet nonetheless sits by his bedside, a musical relationship that predates the primary transatlantic flight and the presidency of Herbert Hoover. He supplied no secrets and techniques to his longevity however did be aware his son’s mother and father have lived for greater than a mixed 190 years. (Van Doren turns 91 on Feb. 6.)
It was agreed throughout that Perry has inherited some good genes and by all accounts, Mr. Anthony, nonetheless playful and cheeky, has had a reasonably good century.
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