Profile
Photos
Comments
| Eddie Fisher | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Birth name | Edwin John Fisher |
| Born | August 10, 1928 , Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
| Genres | Traditional Pop |
| Years active | 1948-1984 |
| Labels | RCA Victor, Ramrod, Dot |
Edwin Jack Fisher (born August 10, 1928) is an American singer and entertainer,
who was one of the world's most famous and successful singers in the
1950's,
selling millions of records and having his own TV show. He has the
distinction
of having been married to Debbie Reynolds,
Elizabeth Taylor,
and Connie Stevens.
His
divorce from his first wife, Debbie Reynolds,
to marry his best friend's
widow, Elizabeth
Taylor, garnered scandalously unwelcome publicity at the time.
Early life
Fisher, fourth of seven children, was born in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, the
son of Russian-born
Jewish immigrants Kate (née Winokur) and Joseph Fisher.[1][2] His father's surname was originally Tisch or Fisch, but was anglicised to Fisher upon
entry into the United
States.[3] To his
family, Fisher was always called "Sonny Boy", a nickname derived from
the song of the
same name in Al
Jolson's film The Singing Fool (1928).[4]
Fisher attended Thomas Junior High School,[5] South
Philadelphia High School,
and Simon Gratz
High School. It was known
at an early age that he had talent as a vocalist and he started singing in numerous amateurWFIL,[5] a local
Philadelphia radio station. He also performed on Arthur
Godfrey's Talent
Scouts, a popular radio show
which later moved to TV. Because he became
a local star,
Fisher dropped out of high school in the middle of his senior year to
pursue his
career.[6] contests, which
he usually won.
He made his radio debut on
[edit] Career
By 1946, Fisher was crooning with the bands of Buddy Morrow and Charlie Ventura.
He was heard in 1949 by Eddie Cantor at Grossinger's
Resort in the Borscht Belt. After
performing on Cantor's radio show he was an instant hit and gained
nationwide
exposure. He then signed with RCA Victor.
Fisher was drafted into the U.S. Army in
1951, sent to Texas for basic training, and served a year in Korea. From 1952 to 1953,
he was the official
vocal soloist for The United
States Army Band (Pershing's
Own) and a tenor section member in the United States Army Band Chorus
(an
element of Pershing's Own) assigned at Fort Myer in the Washington, D.C. Military District. The photos
of him in uniform during his time in the service did not hurt his civilian career.
After his discharge, he became even more popular
singing in top nightclubs. He also had a variety television series, Coke
Time with Eddie Fisher (NBC) (1953–1957), appeared
on Perry
Como's show, The
Gisele MacKenzie Show, The Chesterfield
Supper Club and The
George Gobel Show, and starred in
another series, The
Eddie Fisher Show (NBC) (1957–1959,
alternating with Gobel's series).
A pre-Rock and Roll vocalist, Fisher's strong
and melodious tenor made him a
teen
idol and one of the most
popular singers of the early 1950s. He had seventeen songs in the Top 10
on the
music charts between 1950 and 1956 and thirty-five in the Top 40.
In 1956, Fisher costarred with then-wife Debbie Reynolds in the musical comedy Bundle
of Joy. He
played a serious role in the 1960 drama Butterfield 8 with
second wife Elizabeth
Taylor. His best friend was showman and producer Mike Todd, who
died in a plane crash in 1958.
Fisher's affair and subsequent marriage to Taylor, Todd's widow, caused a
show business scandal because he and Reynolds had a
very public divorce. It was because
of
the unfavorable publicity surrounding the affair and divorce that NBC
cancelled
Fisher's television series in March 1959.
In 1960, he was dropped by RCA Victor and briefly recorded on his own
label,
Ramrod
Records. He later recorded for Dot Records. During
this time, he had the first
commercial recording of "Sunrise,
Sunset" from Fiddler on the
Roof. This technically
counts as the biggest standard Fisher can claim credit for introducing,
although
it is rarely associated with him. He also recorded the album Eddie
Fisher
Today which showed that he had more depth than his singles from
earlier
years had shown. The DotRCA Victor and had a
minor single
hit in 1966 with the song "Games That Lovers Play" with Nelson Riddle,
which became the title of his best
selling album. During the time Fisher was the most popular singer in
America[citation
needed], in the
mid 1950s, singles, rather than albums, were the primary recording
medium. His
last album for RCA was an Al
Jolson tribute, You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet. Eddie Fisher's
last
album was recorded around 1984 on the Bainbridge record label. Fisher
tried to
stop the album from being released, but it turned up as After All.
The
album was produced by William J. O'Malley and arranged by Angelo
DiPippo. contract was not
successful in record sales terms, and he returned to
Fisher has performed in top concert halls all over the United States
and
headlined in major Las Vegas showrooms. He has headlined at the
Palace
Theater in New York City as
well as London's Palladium.
Fisher has two stars on the Hollywood
Walk of Fame, one for
Recording, at 6241 Hollywood Boulevard, and one for TV, at 1724 Vine
Street.
[edit] Personal life
Fisher has had five wives: actress Debbie
Reynolds (married 1955-divorced 1959), actress Elizabeth Taylor (married 1959-divorced 1964),
actress Connie Stevens (married 1967-divorced 1969), Terry Richard (married 1975- divorced
1976) and
Betty Lin (married 1993). Betty Lin died on April 15, 2001. Fisher is
the father
of two children by Reynolds, actress Carrie Fisher and
Todd Fisher, and the father of
two children by Stevens, actress Joely Fisher and
actress Tricia Leigh
Fisher.
In 1981,
Fisher wrote an autobiography, Eddie:
My Life, My Loves (ISBN
0-06-014907-8). He wrote
another autobiography in 1999 titled Been
There, Done That (ISBN
0-312-20972-X). The later
book devotes little space to Fisher's singing career, but recycled the
material
of his first book and added many new sexual details that were too strong
to
publish before. His daughter Carrie declared,
upon publication: "That's it.
I'm having my DNA fumigated."
When interviewed, Debbie Reynolds will characteristically say that
she could
understand being dumped "for the world's most beautiful woman (Taylor)",
previously a close friend. Taylor and Reynolds later resumed their
friendship,
and mocked Fisher in their TV movie These Old Broads,
wherein their characters
ridiculed the ex-husband they shared, named "Freddie."