Buddy Clark

Buddy Clark
Clark in a 1942 advertisement
Background information
Birth name	Samuel Goldberg
Born	(1912-07-26)July 26, 1912 Dorchester, Massachusetts, United States
Died	Los Angeles, California, United States
Genres	Traditional pop
Years active	1934–1949
Labels	Columbia
Website	Buddy Clark biography on the Interlude Era site

Buddy Clark (July 26, 1912 - October 1, 1949) was a popular American singer in the 1930s and 1940s.

Life and career

Clark was born Samuel Goldberg to Jewish parents in Dorchester, Massachusetts. He made his Big Band singing debut in 1932 as a tenor, with Gus Arnheim's orchestra, but was not successful. Singing baritone, he gained wider notice in 1934, with Benny Goodman on the Let's Dance radio program. In 1936 he began performing on the show, Your Hit Parade, and remained until 1938. In the mid-1930s he signed with Vocalion Records, having a top-20 hit with "Spring Is Here". He did not have another hit until the late 1940s, but continued recording, appearing in movies, and dubbing other actors' voices.

In 1946 he signed with Columbia Records and scored his biggest hit with the song "Linda" recorded in November of that year, but hitting its peak in the following spring. "Linda" was written especially for the six-year-old daughter of a show business lawyer named Lee Eastman, whose client, songwriter Jack Lawrence, wrote the song at Lee’s request. Upon reaching adulthood, Linda became famous as a photographer, a musician (as a member of Wings, the 1970s band headed by her husband, former Beatle Paul McCartney), and a prominent spokeswoman for animal rights.

1947 also saw hits for Clark with such titles as "How Are Things in Glocca Morra?" (from the musical Finian's Rainbow), which made the Top Ten, "Peg O' My Heart", "An Apple Blossom Wedding", and "I'll Dance at Your Wedding". The following year he had another major hit with "Love Somebody" (a duet with Doris Day, selling a million and reaching #1 on the charts) and nine more chart hits, and extended his success into 1949 with a number of hits, both solo and duetting with Day and Dinah Shore. A month after his death, his recording of "A Dreamer's Holiday" hit the charts.

On Saturday, October 1, 1949, hours after the 37-year-old had completed a Club Fifteen broadcast on CBS Radio with The Andrews Sisters—subbing for ailing host Dick Haymes—Clark joined five friends in renting a small plane to attend a Stanford vs. Michigan State college football game. On the way back to Los Angeles after the game, the plane ran out of fuel, lost altitude, and crashed on Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles. Clark didn't survive the crash. Clark's last radio broadcast found him in very high spirits, clowning with Maxene, LaVerne, and Patty Andrews. He joined them for a comical rendition of "Baby Face," during which Buddy amused the CBS studio audience, as well as the famous swing trio of sisters, with his spot-on Al Jolson impression.

He is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale) in Everlasting Love, Lot 810, Space 1. He's buried near his widow, Nedra Sanders Clark Broccoli (February 28, 1919 – September 23, 1958), who married producer, Albert R. Broccoli two years after his passing. She passed away from bladder cancer. Both are interred near their daughter, Penny (June 5, 1943 – August 14, 1950), who was struck by an automobile in Brentwood, Los Angeles.

Jerry Vale's first album, I Remember Buddy (1958), was a tribute to Clark.

Hit songs

• "An Apple Blossom Wedding" (1947)
• "Baby, It's Cold Outside" (1949) (Duet with Dinah Shore)
• "Ballerina" (1948)
• "Confess" (1948) (Duet with Doris Day, flip side of Love Somebody, Columbia 38174; also a hit for Patti Page)
• "Don't You Love Me Anymore" (1947)
• "A Dreamer's Holiday" (1949) (bigger hit for Perry Como)
• "Girl Of My Dreams" (with Mitchell Ayres and His Orchestra)
• "How Are Things in Glocca Morra?" (1947) (bigger hit for Dick Haymes)
• "I'll Dance at Your Wedding" (1947) (flip side of These Things Money Can't Buy)
• "I'll Get By (As Long as I Have You)" (with Mitchell Ayres & His Orchestra)
• "I Love You So Much It Hurts" (1949)
• "It's a Big, Wide, Wonderful World" (1949) (with Mitchell Ayres and His Orchestra)
• "Linda" (1947)
• "Love Somebody" (1948) (Duet with Doris Day)
• "Matinee" (1948)
• "May I Have the Next Romance?" (1936)
• "My Darling, My Darling" (1948) (Duet with Doris Day)
• "Now Is the Hour" (1948) (bigger hit for both Bing Crosby and Gracie Fields)
• "Peg O' My Heart" (1947) (bigger hit for Jerry Murad and the Harmonicats)
• "Powder Your Face with Sunshine" (1949) (Duet with Doris Day)
• "Rosalie" (with Mitchell Ayres & His Orchestra)
• "The Rhythm of the Rhumba" (Duet with Joe Host and the Lud Gluskin orchestra) (1936)
• "Serenade" (1948)
• "She Shall Have Music" (1936)
• "South America, Take It Away!" (with Xavier Cugat and His Orchestra)
• "Spring Is Here" (1938)
• "Take My Heart" (1936) (flip side of These Foolish Things)
• "These Foolish Things" (1936)
• "These Things Money Can't Buy" (1947) (flip side of I'll Dance at Your Wedding)
• "The Treasure of Sierra Madre" (1948)
• "Until Today" (1936)
• "Where the Apple Blossoms Fall" (1948)
• "You Are Never Away" (1948)
• "You're Breaking My Heart" (Orchestra & Chorus Conducted by Harry Zimmerman)

Further reading

• Bloom, Ken. American song. The Complete Musical Theater Companion. 1877–1995’’, Vol. 2, 2nd edition, Schirmer Books, 1996.
• Clarke, Donald (Ed.). The Penguin Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Viking, 1989.
• Cuscuna, Michael; Ruppi, Michel. The Blue Note Label. A Discography, Greenwood Press, 2001.
• Larkin, Colin. The Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Third edition, Macmillan, 1998.

External links

• Buddy Clark biography on Yahoo! site
• Buddy Clark biography by Frank Dee
• Buddy Clark biography on the Interlude Era site
• Buddy Clark at Find a Grave
• Buddy Clark at the Internet Movie Database