Gene Austin (
June 24,
1900–
January 24,
1972) was an
American singer and
songwriter who is considered to have been the first "
crooner".
Austin was born as
Lemeul Eugene Lucas in
Gainesville, Texas (north of
Dallas), to Nova Lucas (died
1943) and the former Serena Belle Harrell (died
1956). He took the name "Gene Austin" from his stepfather, Jim Austin, a
blacksmith. Austin grew up in
Minden, the seat of
Webster Parish in northwestern
Louisiana, located east of
Shreveport. There he learned to play
piano and
guitar. He ran away from home at fifteen and attended a
vaudeville act in
Houston, where the audience was allowed to come to the stage and sing. On a dare from his friends, Austin took the stage and sang for the first time since singing as a
Southern Baptist choir boy. The audience response was overwhelming, and the vaudeville company immediately offered him a billed spot on their ticket.
Austin joined the
U.S. Army at the age of seventeen in hopes of being dispatched to
Europe to fight in
World War I. He was first stationed in
New Orleans, where he played the piano at night in the city's notorious
vice district. His familiarity with horses from helping his stepfather in his blacksmithing business also prompted the Army to assign Austin to the
cavalry and send him to
Mexico with General
John Pershing's
Pancho Villa expedition, for which he was awarded the
Mexican Service Medal. Thereafter, he served in
France in the Great War.
On returning to the United States in
1919, Austin settled in
Baltimore, Maryland, where he intended to study
dentistry. Soon, however, he was playing piano and singing in local
taverns. He started writing songs and formed a vaudeville act with Roy Bergere, with whom he wrote "How Come You Do Me Like You Do." The act ended when Bergere married.
Austin worked briefly in a club owned by Lou Clayton, who later was a part of the famous vaudeville team Clayton, Jackson and Durante.
RCA Victor bought his popular song "When My Sugar Walks Down the Street." In the next decade with RCA, Austin sold over 80 million records -- a total unmatched by a single artist for 40 years. Best sellers included "The Lonesome Road," "Riding Around in the Rain," and "Ramona."
Arriving with the advent of
electrical recording technologies (earlier, acoustical technologies had been used) Austin soon gave birth to the "crooner" form (a clear light tenor) of singing of the
1920s and
1930s. Along with
Art Gillham,
Nick Lucas, Johnny Marvin and
Cliff Edwards, Austin took over from the more sentimental style of tenor vocals popularized by such singers as
Henry Burr and
Billy Murray. Such later crooners as
Bing Crosby,
Frank Sinatra, and
Russ Columbo all credited Austin with creating the musical genre that began their careers. Gene Austin became enormously popular in the late 1920s.
His recording of "
My Blue Heaven" sold over 12 million records and until
Bing Crosby's "
White Christmas" replaced it as the largest selling record of all time.
Offered to work in
Hollywood at the height of his career as the "Voice of the Southland", Austin appeared in three films, "
Belle of the Nineties" (1934), "
Klondike Annie" (1936) and "
My Little Chickadee" (1940), at the request of his personal friend,
Mae West.
Gene Austin married his first wife, Kathryn Arnold, a dancer, in
1924 and divorced her in
1929. They had a child, Ann, born in
1928. Austin married his second wife, Agnes Antelline, in
1933, and their daughter Charlotte was born that same year. He and Agnes divorced in
1940. Austin then married actress Doris Sherrell in 1940, and divorced her in
1946. He married wife number four, LouCeil Hudson, a singer, in
1949, and the marriage lasted until
1966. Austin married Gigi Theodorea in
1967; this was his fifth and final marriage. 1970's country music star Tommy Overstreet is Gene's 3rd cousin.
In
1956,
CBS made a television drama about Austin's life.
In
1962, Austin campaigned unsuccessfully for the
Democratic nomination for
governor of
Nevada. He polled only 5,017 votes (10.21 percent) to his opponent,
Grant Sawyer, who received 40,168 ballots (81.4 percent) Sawyer then won the governorship by a nearly 2-1 margin over weak
Republican opposition in the fall campaign.
Austin had retired to
Palm Springs, California, in the late 1950s and had been active in civic boards there until
1970. Income from his record sales allowed him to live comfortably the rest of his life. He died in Palm Springs of
lung cancer and was interred in the
Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in
Glendale, California.
In
1978, Gene Austin was posthumously awarded a
Grammy Hall of Fame Award for his 1928 recording of
Bye, Bye, Blackbird, which has long been considered recorded music's definitive rendition of that song.
In
2005, Gene Austin was nominated and admitted to the
Grammy Hall of Fame.
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