1. Gertrude Niesen was an American torch singer, actress, comedian, and songwriter who achieved popular success in musicals and films in the 1930s and 1940s.
14 Facts About Gertrude Niesen
1. 2.
Gertrude Niesen attended Brooklyn Heights Seminary, where she found and developed an interest in music.
3.
Gertrude Niesen began singing as a career in the early 1930s, performing on radio and in night clubs.
4.
Gertrude Niesen first appeared on film with Roger Wolfe Kahn and His Orchestra and Artie Shaw in a Vitaphone short film, Yacht Party.
5.
On old-time radio, Gertrude Niesen was the featured singer on The Ex-Lax Big Show on CBS and host of The Show Shop, on NBC-Blue.
6.
Gertrude Niesen left The Ex-Lax Big Show in the summer of 1935 to sing leads in musical productions of the St Louis Municipal Opera Theatre.
7.
Gertrude Niesen recorded for Victor, Columbia, and Brunswick in the 1930s, and in 1933 was the first to record the song "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", by Jerome Kern and Otto Harbach.
8.
Gertrude Niesen appeared in the Broadway musical Calling All Stars in 1934 and in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1936.
9.
Gertrude Niesen's singing at a cafe in Hollywood led to her signing a contract with Universal.
10.
Gertrude Niesen began to appear regularly in movies, including Top of the Town, in which she sang four songs, Start Cheering, and A Night at Earl Carroll's, in which she sang a song that she co-wrote, "I Want to Make with the Happy Times".
11.
Gertrude Niesen co-starred with Jackie Gleason in the 1944 stage musical Follow the Girls, in which she sang "I Want to Get Married", one of her better-known songs.
12.
Gertrude Niesen recorded for Decca Records throughout the 1940s, and released a self-titled LP for the label in 1951.
13.
Gertrude Niesen appeared on many radio shows and on TV in the early 1950s.
14.
Gertrude Niesen married Chicago nightclub owner Al Greenfield in Las Vegas on July 19,1943.