Julia Frances Langford

Julia Frances Langford (April 4, 1913 – July 11, 2005)

Langford was a singer and entertainer who was popular during the Golden Age of Radio and also made film appearances over two decades. While a young girl she required a tonsillectomy that changed her soprano range to a rich contralto. As a result, she was forced to change her vocal style to a more contemporary big band, popular music style. At age 17, she was singing for local dances. Cigar manufacturer Eli Witt heard her sing at an American Legion party and hired her to sing on his local radio show. After a brief stint in the Broadway musical "Here Goes the Bride" in 1931, she moved to Hollywood appearing on the Louella Parsons' radio show "'Hollywood Hotel' while starting a movie career. While singing for radio during the early 1930s, she was heard by Rudy Vallee, who invited her to become a regular on his radio show. From 1935 until 1938 she was a regular performer on Dick Powell's radio show. From 1946 to 1951, she performed with Don Ameche as the insufferable wife, Blanche, on The Bickersons. With her film debut in Every Night at Eight (1935) the diminutive five-foot-one-inch star introduced what became her signature song: "I'm in the Mood for Love".

She then began appearing frequently in films such as Broadway Melody of 1936 (1935), Born to Dance (1936), and Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) with James Cagney, in which (portraying Nora Bayes) she performed the popular song "Over There". She also appeared on screen in Dixie Jamboree and Radio Stars on Parade. From 1941, Langford was a regular singer on Bob Hope's The Pepsodent Show when he held his first military entertainment program at March Field in Riverside, California in 1941. The show was so positive, he continued broadcasting from training bases around the country and asked Langford to join him. During World War II, she joined Hope, Jerry Colonna, guitarist Tony Romano, and other performers on U.S.O. tours through Europe, North Africa, and the South Pacific, entertaining thousands of G.I.'s throughout the world. As a guest on early television shows such as Perry Como and Jackie Gleason she was motivated to venture into television. She was the host of two self-titled variety television programs. She then teamed with Don Ameche for the ABC television program, The Frances Langford/Don Ameche Show (1951).

Langford was also a successful businesswoman. She owned the Frances Langford Outrigger Resort, at Jensen Beach, Florida, where she gave live performances after finishing her concert tours in the mid-1960s. Health problems plagued her in the last years of her life with periodic hospital stays. She died at her Jensen Beach home at age 92 from congestive heart failure. According to her wishes, she was cremated and the ashes strewn off the coast of Florida near her residence.