Date sent: Fri, 4 Feb 2000 08:58:57 EST
Subject: Re: macho attitudes? was: speech-level singing
To: vocalist
Send reply to: VOCALIST <vocalist>

In a message dated 02/03/2000 3:25:22 PM Eastern Standard Time,
randerman-at-asabenefits.com writes (although it actually first came from Chris
Thomas):

<< I seem to recall reading in her first autobiography that she was told that
her speaking voice was too high for movies ... so she would go out to the
Hollywood Hills with a carton of cigarettes, smoke them and scream till she
was hoarse. That's how she got her sultry sexy (aka damaged) voice >>

One of my favorite bits of movie trivia is that in "To Have and To Have Not"
(is that right?), Bacall's first movie, she played a nightclub singer. They
dubbed her singing voice (not surprising, given the paragraph above, although
she did actually do at least one Broadway musical). The fun part is that the
voice they used belonged to Andy Williams. I saw the movie again recently,
and sure enough, if you listen well, you can tell that it's Andy Williams.
But it sounds remarkably like Bacall's speaking voice.

Lee Morgan
Mezzo-soprano