Frances Langford Collection

Frances Langford
(1913 – 2005)

(1914 - 2005)

Frances Langford, born Frances Newbern Langford on April 4, 1914 in Lakeland, Florida, started out just like every other famous singer of the time, being a Vaudevillian. As a child, Langford had a knack for the stage, mainly geared towards Operatic singing. Langford's proficiency as an operatic soprano would have earned her a successful career in that field, but a throat operation in her teenage years shattered her aspirations of ever being under the limelight of Broadway Opera.

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Frances recovery from her surgery found her in the beginning again, trying to work with a new voice. Given that most singers adapt to the change in their voices at a young age, Frances worked tirelessly to find her perfect tone, just like Frank Sinatra did when he was told that his natural singing voice was just too plain! After many personal singing lessons, and years of building a reputation as a sexy, but easy-going lounge singer at a quasi-famous nightclub in Florida, Frances was ready for Hollywood, or rather, was Hollywood ready for Frances!

While singing at a local Tampa Bay radio station in 1931, Rudy Vallee discovered young Langford and offered her a guest spot on his radio program. After she established a small following while frequenting the Rudy Vallee radio program, Frances began to win more acclaim in the Vaudeville scene. Her star was continually increasing in both worlds! After a couple years, her reputations in Vaudeville and on the radio collided, and, like a beautiful Phoenix, from that beautiful mesh of both worlds, Frances became a hot commodity.

Frances is known for her role in the Alice Faye movie Every Night at Eight, which consisted of her most famous hit to date, "I'm in the Mood for Love." With loads of scripts being tossed in her direction, and with the influx of demand for more records, Frances was pretty busy as it is, but she did not mind. In 1940 she got a part in the film version of the George Abbott Broadway musical "Too Many Girls", starring Lucille Ball, Eddie Barcken, Richard Carlson and Ann Miller. If this was not enough, she replaced Judy Garland in Bob Hope's old time radio show.

Actually has it that if it were not for Frances Langford being on the show and being a strong influence on Bob, he would not have done his famous USO tours. Sources claim that a couple of high-ranking government officials asked Bob Hope directly if he could do a show for the service men in their training camps, due mostly to his immense popularity with the soldiers. Bob was not too keen on the idea, but he replied that he would do it if the rest of his cast did not have any objections to the notion. He insisted this to the officials because, in the back of his mind, he believed that the only one who would object to this was little innocent, easy-going Frances. To his immense disbelief, Frances thought very highly of the idea! After their first show, Bob was convinced that foregoing his personal objections for the sake of his fellow compatriot soldiers was the American way. Frances continued on the Bob Hope show until the war was finished, where she jumped on board of Spike Jones' Chase & Sandborn Show.