Happy Birthday Ray Anthony! Congratulations on your 102nd birthday, we wish you all the best, especially good health and otherwise only the best that life has to offer.
The last living swing legend from the original Glenn Miller Orchestra.
Ray Anthony (real name Raymond Antonini; 20 January 1922 in Bentleyville, Pennsylvania) is an American bandleader, trumpeter, songwriter and actor.
As a child, Ray Anthony and his family moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where he learnt to play the trumpet with his father. From 1940 to 1941, he played trumpet in Glenn Miller's orchestra, which was one of the most popular bands in America at the time. Anthony also appeared in the Glenn Miller film Adopted Happiness (1941) as a member of the orchestra. Anthony then served in the U.S. Navy during the Second World War.
After the war, he founded his own music group. The Ray Anthony Orchestra rose to prominence in the early 1950s with recordings such as Anthony's classic dance song The Bunny Hop, with George Dale Williams as arranger. In 1949, he scored his first chart hit with his version of Dreamer's Holiday for Capitol Records, with Dick Noel on vocals. In 1950, he scored five Top 30 hits: Sentimental Me, Count Every Star, Can Anyone Explain? Harbour Lights and Nevertheless. After achieving a modest hit in the charts with At Last in 1952, he scored his first top 10 success in 1953 with the song Dragnet. The song Dragnet also served as the intro to the German TV crime series Stahlnetz.
From 1953 to 1954, Anthony was orchestra director in the television series TV's Top Tunes. He also appeared in the film Daddy Long Legs. In 1955, Anthony married the actress Mamie van Doren and at the same time began to expand his own acting career. He starred in the short-lived entertainment programme The Ray Anthony Show from 1956 to 1957. Anthony also appeared in several films in the late 1950s, for example in The Five Pennies (he played Jimmy Dorsey), in The Girl Can't Help It and in Van Doren's films With Seventeen on the Brink and Blonde Curls - Sharp Claws. He made his first appearance in Germany on 10 September 1957 with Caterina Valente in Bonsoir Kathrin! the first personality show on German television, with the Südfunk dance orchestra conducted by Erwin Lehn.
After Anthony's rather modest success as a singer with Frank Sinatra in 1955 with the title Melody Of Love, it was not until 1959 that he landed his second top 10 hit with Henry Mancini's Peter Gunn. Until 1962, he was still occasionally represented in the lower charts with his singles, but he was no longer able to achieve major sales success in the singles sector. Between 1955 and 1958, his albums achieved four top 20 placings: Golden Horn, Dream Dancing, Young Ideas and The Dream Girl. In 1962, he managed to reach number 14 in the album charts once again with the album Worried Mind.
Anthony and Van Doren divorced in 1961. Anthony's short film career ended around the same time. However, he continued his music career.
Anthony was honoured with a star on the Walk of Fame. Anthony was active as a bandleader well into his old age, performing on his 95th birthday, and now lives in Southern California and is the last living member of the Glenn Miller Orchestra (under Miller's direction).
