14 Facts About Buddy Pepper

Buddy Pepper wrote several songs for Universal Pictures' films, including Mister Big.

Buddy Pepper was born Jack Retherford Starkey in La Grange, Kentucky, on April 21,1922.

Once established in California, Buddy Pepper began attending Ma Lawlor's Professional School, located off Hollywood Boulevard, where he met and became friends with actress Judy Garland.

Shortly after the hit Broadway musical revue Meet the People opened on December 25,1939, Buddy Pepper joined the cast on its nearly two-year run throughout the cities of Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, and San Francisco, among others.

Buddy Pepper was then cast in the Twentieth Century Fox films Golden Hoofs and Small Town Deb, both starring Withers herself.

Buddy Pepper was first stationed at Fort MacArthur in California, during which time he and other servicemen performed in an "all-soldier" revue titled Hey, Rookie.

Buddy Pepper then started another tour throughout the Air Transport Command Ferrying Division bases after he was selected as one of "the three top entertainers" in the ATC.

Buddy Pepper was discharged in October 1945 and returned to his career in Hollywood.

Buddy Pepper began writing and composing his own songs soon after arriving in Hollywood.

In March 1951, Buddy Pepper agreed to accompany Judy Garland on a six-month tour throughout Europe in her first return to the stage since her film career had begun 14 years earlier.

Buddy Pepper rushed from the piano to lift her to her feet, and both laughed it off, Garland even calling it "one of the most ungraceful exits" there ever was.

Buddy Pepper began to accompany Marlene Dietrich in 1955, playing for her at the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas for a few weeks.

In later years, Buddy Pepper developed acute arthritis in his hands and was unable to play the piano, though his career had already seemed to have reached a decline years earlier in 1970.

Buddy Pepper died of heart failure on February 7,1993, at his home in Sherman Oaks, California, at the age of 70.