1. Raymond Stanley Noble was an English jazz and big band musician, who was a bandleader, composer and arranger, as well as a radio host, television and film comedian and actor; he performed in the United States.
16 Facts About Ray Noble
1. 2.
Ray Noble is best known for his signature tune, "The Very Thought of You" and "Cherokee".
3.
Ray Noble played a radio comedian opposite American ventriloquist Edgar Bergen's stage act of Mortimer Snerd and Charlie McCarthy, and American comedy duo Burns and Allen, later transferring these roles from radio to TV and popular films.
4.
Ray Noble was born at 1 Montpelier Terrace in the Montpelier area of Brighton, England.
5.
Ray Noble was the nephew of the Anglican church music composer T Tertius Noble.
6.
Ray Noble studied at the Royal Academy of Music and in 1927 won a competition for the best British dance band orchestrator that was advertised in Melody Maker.
7.
Ray Noble took Al Bowlly and his drummer Bill Harty to the US and asked trombonist Glenn Miller to recruit American musicians to complete the band.
8.
The American Ray Noble band had a successful run at the Rainbow Room in New York City with Bowlly as principal vocalist.
9.
Ray Noble played a somewhat "dense" character who was in love with Gracie Allen.
10.
Bowlly returned to England in January 1937, but Noble continued to lead bands in America, moving into an acting career, often portraying a stereotypical upper-class English character.
11.
Ray Noble played the piano, but seldom did so with his orchestra.
12.
Ray Noble sits down at the piano and plays "Goodnight, Sweetheart".
13.
Ray Noble provided music for many radio shows such as The Chase and Sanborn Hour, The Charlie McCarthy Show, Burns and Allen and On Stage with Cathy and Elliott Lewis and guest-appeared in some of their films.
14.
Ray Noble worked with Bergen for nearly fifteen years, playing the foil to McCarthy and the slow-witted Mortimer Snerd, and his orchestra appeared with Edgar Bergen in the 1942 film Here We Go Again.
15.
Ray Noble provided the orchestration for the 1942 Lou Gehrig biopic The Pride of the Yankees starring Gary Cooper.
16.
The ventriloquist TV show ended in the mid-1950s, and Ray Noble retired to Santa Barbara, California.