You’re in for a real treat . . . Julie London live at The Cameo in NYC in 1956

Main Gallery

Family & Friends

LIFE Magazine

Movie Galleries

March 16, 1957 - Julie Sings at the Emmy Awards

November 15, 1959 - The Dinah Shore Show

March 15, 1959 - Frances Langford Presents Julie sings with The Four Freshmen.

Above: Julie singing on stage in Las Vegas in 1967

Below: Singing with the same four guys in San Francisco

Julie London’s public singing career began when she was three-years-old. She sang Falling in Love Again, à la Marlena Dietrich, on her parents radio show. She grew up with parents who were entertainers and Julie identified more with her parents friends in the music business than she did with children her own age.

Fast forward a few years, and she had dropped out of school at age 15, got a job running an elevator at Roos Brothers’ Department Store in L.A. and also sang with the Matty Melnick Orchestra. She may have been 16 but she looked 21. The gig with Matty Malneck ended, I believe, when Julie’s actual age was discovered.

Talent scout Sue Carol, discovered her running the elevator and she got Julie some screen tests and film roles, Julie also sang with the USO, entertaining servicemen during WWII.

Fast forward a few more years. A film career, marriage to Jack Webb, two children, divorce. She meets future husband Bobby Troup who hears her sing at a private party and it only takes him a year-and-a-half to convince Julie to sing in front of an audience that she didn’t know.

In July 1955, Julie opened for a two-week booking at Johnny Walsh’s 881 Club in Hollywood. She stayed for ten weeks. Si Waronker was launching his new record company, Liberty Records, and signed Julie and published her debut album, Julie Is Her Name. It sold something like one million copies and put Julie and Liberty Records on the music map. Julie’s Hollywood Professional High School classmate and senior prom date, Arthur Hamilton, wrote her signature hit, Cry Me A River.

Julie traveled to New York City in the closing days of 1955 for her first televised performance on Perry Como’s New Year’s Eve show. Thirty million viewers got an eye-and-earful of Julie.

A few days later on January 5th, 1956, Julie London and boyfriend and long-time fiancée, Bobby Troup brought their acts to the fashionable Eastside Manhattan supper club, The Cameo.

Now for the treat. NBC radio did a show from The Cameo covering Julie’s and Bobby’s performances along with interviews and complete with commercials for buying US Savings Bonds. The show is hosted by NBC radio announcer Fred Collins. The quality of the recording is excellent. It’s like sitting at a stage-side table. You can hear the audience clapping, glasses clinking and all the ambience of being in an intimate supper club in the early days of Julie’s music career.

Rather than break up the recording, it is presented as a continuous 30 minute radio program. Below are the times the various songs begin and in between songs, Fred Collins interviews Julie and Bobby and promotes US Savings Bonds. You may be able to drag the the mp3 file of the show to your desktop and import it into iTunes.

00:00 - Introduction by NBC’s Fred Collins

01:20 - Route 66 - Bobby Troup with Al Viola (Guitar) & Whitey Mitchell (Bass)

05:00 - Jamboree Jones - Bobby Troup

09:30 - What Is This Thing Called Love - Julie London

11:40 - Say It Isn’t So - Julie London

14:15 - Perdido - Bobby Troup

16:20 - Baby, Baby All The Time - Julie London

20:30 - Cry Me A River - Julie London

24:20 - Skylark - Bobby Troup

26:40 - The Three Little Bears - Bobby Troup

I’m happy to give a shout out and share a link to the site where I found this gem of a recording at Crooks and Liars.

The next nine photographs put you in The Cameo with Julie and Bobby in January 1956.

Click on the play button on the right to hear the radio broadcast.

I just love the quote from Earl Wilson’s “Broadway” column, published January 12th, 1956: . . . Seeing sexy Julie London (the ex-Mrs. Jack Webb) opening at The Cameo, a viewer sighed, “Webb must be nuts.”

The next fourteen photographs were taken, I believe, by a LIFE magazine photographer for the cover story they published on Julie in 1957. They capture Julie performing at Johnny Walsh’s 881 Club in Hollywood where Julie London’s musical career got its start in July 1955.

From 1955 to 1972, Julie London performed constantly on television, in concerts and in night clubs from coast-to-coast. In 1972 her ex-husband Jack Webb invited Julie and her husband Bobby Troup to work with him on his new television series, Emergency! The show rescued Julie and Bobby from the Club scene and effectively closed out Julie’s public singing career.

In the recording studio from the photo-spread in LOOK Magazine September 16, 1958.

Performing in Las Vegas

Above: September 28, 1966 - Julie sings at the Empire Room at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City

Caption: January 23, 1964 - Las Vegas, Nev. -- Singer Julie London made her Las Vegas, Nev., nightclub debut Thursday (Jan. 23) at the Flamingo Hotel. Specially installed for Miss London’s act was a space platform which circles the showroom, much like a mechanical rabbit at a dog track, while the lovely entertainer sings her opening number, “Fly Me To The Moon,” Appearing on the same stage with Miss London is comedian Jack Carter.

1965 Press Photo