German postcard by Benedikt Taschen Verlag GMBH, Köln, 1997. Photo: William Claxton. Caption: Nat King Cole, San Francisco, 1957, from the book 'William Claxton's Jazz Photography'.
American singer and pianist Nat 'King' Cole (1919-1965) with his typical raspy voice received 28 golden records for such classic hits as 'Mona Lisa' (1949), 'Too Young' (the #1 song in 1951), his signature tune 'Unforgettable' (1951) and 'Ramblin' Rose' (1962). He also appeared in several films, including St. Louis Blues (1958) and Cat Ballou (1965).
Nat King Cole was born Nathaniel Adams Coles in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1919. When he was four or five (the sources differ), his family moved to Chicago. There, his father, Edward James Coles, was a minister at the True Light Baptist Church and later the Pastor of the First Baptist Church. Nat received music lessons from his mother. He learned jazz and gospel music, but also Western classical music. At 12, he was playing the church organ, and at 14, he formed a 14-piece band called the Royal Dukes. His three brothers, Ike Cole, Eddie Cole, and Frankie Cole, also played the piano and later sang professionally. In 1939, Nat formed the King Cole Trio after his publicist put a silver tin-foiled crown on his head and proclaimed him King. He became known as a leading jazz pianist, and soon also became noted for his soft, baritone voice. His recordings of 'Straighten Up And Fly Right' (1943), which sold over 500,000 copies, and '(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66' (1946) would become classics and influenced several Rock and roll singers of the 1950s.
Nat King Cole met his second wife, Maria (a big-band singer), at the Zanzibar nightclub in Los Angeles through the Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson show. Her parents protested her decision to marry Cole, claiming he was "too black". However, they were married in 1948 and had five children, including singer Natalie Cole. When he and his family moved to the upscale Hancock Park area of Los Angeles in the late 1940s, they were met with considerable opposition from the residents of the previously all-white neighbourhood. When the neighbours finally realised - after several attempts, including legal action - that the Coles were not going to be intimidated, they accepted defeat and, ultimately, the Coles as well. In the mid-1950s, Nat had several mainstream Rock and Roll hits including 'Send For Me', 'With You On My Mind', 'When Rock and Roll Comes To Trinidad', and 'Looking Back'. He often toured Europe and made a command performance before Queen Elizabeth II. He was the first African-American to have his own TV show - the highly-rated The Nat King Cole Show (1954). Cole cancelled the show because no company was willing to sponsor the show. In 1956, during a concert in Birmingham, Alabama, Cole was attacked by six white men from a white supremacist group called the White Citizens Council. He sustained minor injuries to his back.
Nat King Cole appeared in several films. Uncredited, he made his film debut in Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941) as a pianist in El Rancho. He performed songs in musicals like Here Comes Elmer (Joseph Santley, 1943), Pin-Up Girl (H. Bruce Humberstone, 1944) starring Betty Grable, and Breakfast in Hollywood (Harold D. Schuster, 1946). During the 1950s, both the films and his parts became bigger, such as in Fritz Lang's Film Noir The Blue Gardenia (1953), Kiss Me Deadly (Robert Aldrich, 1955), and the war drama China Gate (Samuel Fuller, 1957) with Angie Dickinson. He played the lead role in St. Louis Blues (Allen Reisner, 1958), a biopic of turn-of-the-century blues composer W. C. Handy. Cole also worked in the European cinema and appeared in the Schlager film Schlager-Raketen/Schlager Missiles (Erik Ode, 1960). His last film was the comic Western Cat Ballou (Elliot Silverstein, 1965), starring Lee Marvin and Jane Fonda. He was also a composer, and his song 'Straighten Up and Fly Right' was sold for $50,000. A heavy smoker, he died of lung cancer in 1965 in Santa Monica. He was only 45. In 1991, his song 'Unforgettable' was made famous again by Cole's daughter Natalie when modern recording technology was used to reunite father and daughter in a duet. The duet version rose to the top of the pop charts, almost forty years after its original popularity.
Source: Mike McKinley (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
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