Tony Martin last of the big-name singer actors is dead

Tony Martin (born as Alvin Morris in San Francisco, California), one of the last of the big band and big-name singer-actors from the golden age of Hollywood musicals, has died of natural causes Friday at his home in Los Angeles, his longtime business manager, Stan Schneider, told The Times. He was 98.

Tony Martin sang with Glenn Miller's Army band and with several post-war big bands. In World War II as a corporal in the United States Army Air Corp he was assigned to Capt. Glenn Miller's band, singing in a number of the band's concerts both stateside and then in England. He was later promoted to technical sergeant in the Air Transport Command and stationed in India, where Brig. Gen. William H. Tunner, commanding the Hump Airlift, put him to work as an entertainer, forming a troupe of amateur talent from the command and taking it around the various bases to perform.

As a young man, he joined the band of a local Bay area orchestra leader, Tom Gerun, as a reed instrument specialist, sitting alongside the future bandleader Woody Herman. He attended Saint Mary's College of California during the mid-1930s. After college, he left Gerun's band to go to Hollywood to try his luck in films. It was at that time that he adopted the stage name of Tony Martin.

Tony Martin

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album liner/RCA 

Video: Tony Martin

He was a featured vocalist on the George Burns and Gracie Allen radio program. On the show Allen playfully flirted with Tony, often threatening to fire him. She'd say things like "Oh Tony you look so tired, why don't you rest your lips on mine."

In films, he was first cast in a number of bit parts, including a role as a sailor in the movie Follow the Fleet (1936), starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. He eventually signed with 20th Century-Fox and then Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in which he starred in a number of musicals. Between 1938 and 1942, he made a number of hit records for Decca. Martin was featured in the 1941 Marx Brothers film The Big Store, in which he played a singer and performed the "Tenement Symphony," which was written by Hal Borne, who became his long-time musical director.

He cut 25 records in 1946 and 1947 for Mercury, including a 1946 recording of "To Each His Own" which became a million-seller. This prompted RCA Victor records to offer him a contract, which he signed in 1947.

He appeared in film musicals in the 1940s and 1950s. His rendition of "Lover Come Back To Me" with Joan Weldon in "Deep in My Heart" - based on the music of Sigmund Romberg and starring José Ferrer - was one of the highlights of that film. He also starred as Gaylord Ravenal in the Show Boat segment from the 1946 Jerome Kern bio film "Till the Clouds Roll By."

In 1937 he married Alice Faye, with whom he had starred in several films. They divorced in 1941. Martin remarried, to actress and dancer Cyd Charisse in 1948.

They remained married until her death in 2008. They had one son together, Tony Martin, Jr. (August 28, 1950 – April 10, 2011), who predeceased his father. Martin adopted Charisse's son, Nicky, from her first marriage.

Martin died on the evening of July 27, 2012, of natural causes.

Here is a selected list of his most popular recordings:

1938 "The Moon Of Manakoora"(with Ray Noble)

 "I Hadn't Anyone Till You"(with Ray Noble)

1939 "South of the Border"
1940 "It's a Blue World"
"Fools Rush In"

1941 "Tonight We Love"
1942 "To Each His Own"
1946 "I'll Dance At Your Wedding"

1948 "Hooray For Love"
"Confess"
"For Every Man There's a Woman"
"It's Magic
1949 "There's No Tomorrow"
"Marta"

1950 "Valencia"
"La Vie en rose"
1951 "In Your Arms"(with Dinah Shore)
"Would I Love You" "I Get Ideas"

1951 "I Apologize"
"Domino"
1952 "Kiss of Fire"
1953 "April In Portugal"

1954 "Stranger In Paradise"
"Here"
1956 "Walk Hand In Hand"
1957 "Do I Love You (Because You're Beautiful)" 

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