Jane Froman
| Jane Froman | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Ellen Jane Froman |
| Born |
November 10, 1907 University City, Missouri |
| Died | April 22, 1980 (aged 72) Columbia, Missouri |
| Occupation(s) | singer, actress |
| Website | www.janefroman.com |
Jane Froman (November 10, 1907 – April 22, 1980) was an American singer and actress. During her thirty-year career, Froman performed on stage, radio and television despite chronic injuries that she sustained from a 1943 plane crash.
Her life story was told in the 1952 film With a Song in My Heart. She was portrayed by Susan Hayward, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance.
Ellen Jane Froman was born in University City, Missouri, the daughter of Anna Tillman (née Barcafer 1874-1962) and Elmer Ellsworth Froman. Her childhood and adolescence were spent in the small Missouri town of Clinton. When Froman was about 5 years old, her father mysteriously disappeared and was never heard from again. Her mother later remarried William Hetzler. Froman developed a stutter around this time, which plagued her all of her life, except when she sang.
In 1919, Froman and her mother moved to Columbia, Missouri, which she considered her hometown. In 1921, at age 13, Froman and another young lady gave a piano-and-song recital at Christian College, now Columbia College (Missouri) (where her mother was director of vocal studies and from which Froman later graduated). In 1926, Froman graduated from Christian College and later attended the University of Missouri School of Journalism. Two years later in 1928, Froman moved to Cincinnati, where she studied voice at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music through 1930.
Although she had classical voice training, early in her career she was drawn to the music of the era's songwriters, George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Irving Berlin, who were inspiring a resurgence in popular music. She met vaudeville performer Don Ross when they auditioned for the same job at WLW radio station in Cincinnati. She first appeared on WLW October 9, 1929 "on the King Taste night club." She made her national network debut on NBC July 31, 1931. She was heard on the Florsheim Frolic program, broadcast on Sunday afternoons. Froman and Ross had their own program beginning July 4, 1937. The 13-episode series on the NBC Red Network was a summer replacement for The Jack Benny Program.
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