He was a heart throb in the 20s, a leading man in the 1930s, a huge star on radio, but really hit his stride in the 1940s when he played a series of character parts.
And then had a big hit on Broadway. (Guess what the show was — answer below.)
Although he looked like your average corporate accountant, Vallee was considered in his time a teen pop idol. He is even compared to the later Frank Sinatra.
His signature personna back in his early screen days was that of “The Vagabond Lover.” As it happens his first movie in 1929 goes by that title, and among his most popular vocal hits — delivered often in Vallee’s twangy crooning style — was “I’m Just A Vagabond Lover.”
It was in the Thirties and Forties that Vallee appeared as a supporting player in an assortment of films — conceivably among the least satisfactory ever produced in Hollywood, according to one critic. Watch for him in such titles as Sweet Music, Gold Diggers of Paris and Second Fiddle. In all, Vallee rolled up more than 50 credits of all kinds as an actor. Below is a 1945 sample (yes, it’s a comedy).
His best effort is probably the one shown below. Here Rudy is above with Claudette Colbert and Joel McCrea in Preston Sturges’ 1942 outing, The Palm Beach Story.
Vallee was always a hard worker, and kept up the pace in the Fifties playing club dates and appearing in summer stock, His late-career triumph came in the early Sixties when he was cast as J.B. Bigley, boss of a worldwide wicket company, in the Frank Loesser-Abe Burrows Broadway musical, How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying.
The show enjoyed a long Broadway run, with audiences coming to see and hear an older Mr. Vallee who had retained many traces of his youthful freshness, intoned The New York Times. Vallee appeared in the same role in the 1967 movie version starring Robert Morse and Michele Lee.
Vallee was a modest liver, who knew how to squeeze a nickel until it sang “My Time Is Your Time.” He was married four times, had no children and died in 1986 at the age of 84.
I guess Rudy Vallee was a giant star in the twenties and thirties. When I was little I was aware of a character in a cartoon (from the thirties) singing “My time is your time, your time is my time…” through a funny thing someone told me was a megaphone. He was skinny and wore funny glasses.
My guess is it was a Paramount/Fleischer cartoon on the Skipper Frank show here in L.A.
He was wonderful in “The Palm Beach Story” and seemed to be having the time of his life in “How to Succeed…”
In his last years he very much wanted the City of Los Angeles to rename his street in the Hollywood Hills “Rue de Vallee.” Didn’t work, but the back and forth went on for a while.
Sort of famously, he passed away in front of his TV watching the festivities on the Statue of Liberty’s centennial in 1986.
He seemed kind of eccentric and to like a good time. He also seemed outspoken about a number of things, but I can’t remember what.
That is what I know about Mr. V without looking at IMDB. I feel like a nerd knowing that much.
RUDY VALLEE… Not exactly someone to get worked-up about, and even less if you were one of those poor unfortunates who worked for him… And not just because he was hard task-master and a mean S.O.B. to them, but he also liked to start fights, had a hair-trigger temper and other anger management issues…
Of course the fans knew none of this, and he seemed to charm the ladies to no end too. Despite his four marriages, he still found plenty of women to fool around with on the side like Alice Faye for one. He certainly was the “Vagabond Lover” and as he boasted “People called me the guy with the cock in his voice. Maybe that’s why in 84 years of life I’ve been with over 145 women and girls.”
As for Rudy’s third marriage to Jane Greer – In 1943, eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes spotted a reproduction of a WWII recruitment poster in Life magazine. It featured an 18 year-old beauty named Bettejane Greer, posing in the latest WAC uniform. Hughes issued orders to his henchmen: ‘Find her and sign her’. Before long Jane Greer was stashed away in one of his bungalows and virtually kept under house arrest for the next five months. ‘Hughes was obsessed with me’, she said years later, ‘but at first it seemed as if he were offering me a superb career opportunity.’ In time, she evaded his spies and started dating crooner Rudy Vallee whom she married a few weeks later. Hughes pressured the couple until their marriage collapsed. Soon afterwards Jane moved in with the billionaire as his lover. Even after her next marriage he continued to pursue her.
As DAN noted about Rudy – “He seemed kind of eccentric and to like a good time. He also seemed outspoken about a number of things, but I can’t remember what.”
Well to answer that he was upset specially with the music scene of the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, didn’t think they knew how to write or sing love songs… But in 1966, his crooning style was parodied by the New Vaudeville Band, a creation of the British songwriter and record producer Geoff Stephens, who arranged this to sound like Rudy Vallee’s vaudeville hits in the 1930’s. Stephens sang it through a megaphone to help create the sound. The song became a surprise novelty hit – Stephens’ only chart entry in the US, but one of four to crack the UK Top 40. This won the 1966 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Rock & Roll Recording.
Artists to cover this song include Petula Clark, Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Conniff, Frank Sinatra and Lawrence Welk.
As for staying current with the 1960’s pop culture trends he often criticized, he appear four times at Lord Marmaduke Ffogg in the BATMAN TV series…
And, RUDY VALLEE was another of those HOLLYWOOD old-timers who just couldn’t resist the mediocre charms of a quick cameo in WON TON TON, THE DOG WHO SAVED HOLLYWOOD in 1976.
Thanks, Graham. Now it’s coming back. Nobody (for the most part) liked him. I do remember wondering why he HAD been so popular.
Hardly seemed to fit the role of, well, anything.
Oh, I forgot to mention that song – Winchester Cathedral!
And DAN… You’ll find that the biggest, most earth shattering disappointment for movie fans, is when they find out something negative about their favorite actor or singer…
And when they discover a lot of negatives about someone they’ve idolized all their life, then for many their COGNITIVE DISSONANCE kicks in and they totally refuse to believe it whatever evidence is presented to them.
You have to just try and balance it all out and hope there is something redeemable about their character you can live with…
By far the very worst major icon I’ve ever come across, is someone you’d never, ever suspect -SPENCER TRACY… But I can still manage to enjoy his performances, and in fact, knowing what his real life, real nasty character was… when you see him the next time you’ll really appreciate what an even greater actor he was despite all that.