1. Gloria Parker was an American musician and bandleader who had a radio show during the big band era.
13 Facts About Gloria Parker
1. 2.
The Gloria Parker Show was broadcast nightly from 1950 to 1957, coast to coast on WABC.
3.
Gloria Parker played the marimba, organ, and singing glasses.
4.
Gloria Parker's grandfather immigrated to the United States from the modern-day Czech Republic, and taught her how to play glasses.
5.
Gloria Parker started learning the violin at the age of four or five, playing a quarter-sized version of the instrument at the Brooklyn Academy of Music during the latter year.
6.
Gloria Parker performed with her orchestras playing the marimba, glass harp or musical glasses, piano, organ, violin, viola, vibraphone, xylophone, guitar, drums and all Latin percussion instruments.
7.
Gloria Parker hosted an evening broadcast on WOR from the New York City Hotel Edison.
8.
Gloria Parker was known for her starring roles in music films, such as Broadway and Main with Stepin Fetchit, Four Letters, Here Comes the Fattest Man in Town with comedic personality Mel Blanc as Santa Claus, Penthouse Party featuring Gloria Parker playing the glass harp, and Wise Men Say, all produced and directed by William Forest Crouch.
9.
Gloria Parker composed the music and wrote the lyrics for the films.
10.
Gloria Parker was engaged to Barney Young until his death during the late 1960s.
11.
Gloria Parker was her manager and co-wrote several songs with her.
12.
Gloria Parker resided in Laurel Hollow on Long Island at the time of her death.
13.
Gloria Parker died on April 13,2022, at a hospital in Syosset, New York.