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33-522: In 1946, the city of Lakeland dedicated the promenade to Lakeland native Frances Langford for her work with the United Service Organizations and her music and acting career. In 2013, the city re-dedicated the promenade and installed a new marker. [REDACTED] Media related to Lake Mirror Promenade at Wikimedia Commons This article about a property in Polk County, Florida on

66-903: A nightclub singer in 1955, she married Outboard Marine Corporation president Ralph Evinrude . They lived on her estate in Jensen Beach and they built a Polynesian-themed restaurant and marina on the Indian River named The Frances Langford Outrigger Resort, where she frequently performed. In 1994, Langford married Harold C. Stuart, former assistant secretary for civil affairs of the United States Air Force (1949–1951) under President Harry S. Truman . They spent summers in Georgian Bay, Ontario, Canada, traveling from their home in Florida aboard their 110-foot yacht. Health problems plagued Langford in

99-566: A USO show in the South Pacific, Langford stood up on a stage to sing before a huge crowd of GIs. When Langford sang the first line of her signature song, "I'm in the Mood for Love," a soldier in the audience stood up and shouted, "You've come to the right place, honey!" Also, during the war, Langford wrote the weekly "Purple Heart Diary" column for Hearst Newspapers, in which she described her visits to military hospitals to entertain wounded GIs. She used

132-622: A positive political acknowledgement in both West and East Germany. In October 1944, a new recording by Captain Glenn Miller and the Army Air Forces Training Command Orchestra featuring Sgt. Ray McKinley and the Crew Chiefs on vocals was released as a V-Disc by the U.S. War Department, one of a series of recordings sent free by the U.S. War Department to overseas military personnel during World War II. Trains have

165-623: A pride of place in Chattanooga's former Terminal Station . Once owned and operated by the Southern Railway , the station was saved from demolition after the withdrawal of passenger rail service in the early 1970s, and it is now part of a 30-acre (12-hectare) resort complex, including the Chattanooga Choo Choo Hotel, and numerous historical railway exhibits. Hotel guests can stay in half of a restored passenger railway car. Dining at

198-830: 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 radio comedy The Bickersons . Langford made her film debut in Every Night at Eight (1935), introducing 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) (in which she popularized "Broadway Rhythm" and "You Are My Lucky Star"), Born to Dance (1936), Too Many Girls (1940) (in which she acted alongside her childhood schoolmate from Lakeland Dan White ), and Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) with James Cagney , in which (portraying Nora Bayes ) she performed

231-479: A short-lived DuMont variety show Star Time (1950). 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), a spin-off of their successful radio series The Bickersons in which

264-636: 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 approach 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 a local radio show he sponsored. Actor Dan White played an important role in her discovery. White and Langford were schoolmates. Langford first sang in public in an amateur show that White staged in Lakeland, Florida. It

297-593: Is featured on the DVD Entertaining the Troops with Bob Hope. Chattanooga Choo Choo " Chattanooga Choo Choo " is a 1941 song that was written by Mack Gordon and composed by Harry Warren . It was originally recorded as a big band / swing tune by Glenn Miller and His Orchestra and featured in the 1941 movie Sun Valley Serenade . It was the first song to receive a gold record , presented by RCA Victor in 1942, for sales of 1.2 million copies. The song

330-1003: The Pennsylvania Railroad . Details in the song do not align with The Birmingham Special , however, which suggests that the writers took some artistic license. Specifically: On the May 7, 1941 original recording by Glenn Miller and His Orchestra in Hollywood on RCA Bluebird, the featured singer was Tex Beneke , who was accompanied by Paula Kelly , the Modernaires (vocals), Billy May , John Best, Ray Anthony , R. D. McMickle (trumpet), Glenn Miller, Jim Priddy, Paul Tanner , Frank D'Annolfo (trombone), Hal McIntyre , Wilbur Schwartz (clarinet, alto saxophone), Tex Beneke , Al Klink (tenor saxophone), Ernie Caceres (baritone saxophone), Chummy MacGregor (piano), Jack Lathrop (guitar), Trigger Alpert (bass), and Maurice Purtill (drums). The arrangement

363-539: The East German festival Rock for Peace on October 25, 1983, on the condition that Lindenberg would not play Sonderzug nach Pankow at the concert. Honecker, a former brass band drummer of Rotfrontkämpferbund , and Lindenberg exchanged presents in form of a leather jacket and a metal shawm in 1987. Lindenberg's success at passing the Inner German border peacefully with a humorous song gave him celebrity status as well as

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396-601: The Harmonizing Four , Harmony Grass , Ted Heath , Betty Johnson , Susannah McCorkle , Ray McKinley , Big Miller , the Muppets , Richard Perlmutter , Oscar Peterson , Spike Robinson , Harry Roy , Jan Savitt , Hank Snow , Teddy Stauffer , Dave Taylor , Claude Thornhill , the Tornados , Vox and Guy Van Duser . Other notable performances include: Nevertheless, Lindenberg finally succeeded in getting an invitation to

429-652: The National Register of Historic Places is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Frances Langford Julia Frances Newbern-Langford (April 4, 1913 – July 11, 2005) was an American singer and actress who was popular during the Golden Age of Radio and made film and television appearances for over two decades. She was known as the "GI Nightingale", an American armed-forces sweetheart , who entertained troops by frequently touring with Bob Hope . Langford originally trained as an opera singer . While

462-471: The South Pacific, entertaining thousands of GIs throughout the world. During a USO tour in the Pacific theater, she was invited to take a ride in a P-38 fighter plane. During the flight, a Japanese ship was spotted and the joy ride was postponed until the pilot finished strafing the ship. In his memoir, Don't Shoot! It's Only Me! , Bob Hope recalled how Frances Langford got the biggest laugh he had ever heard. At

495-643: The back of the property. The city's other historic station, Union Station, parts of which predated the Civil War , was demolished in 1973; the site is now an office building formerly housing the corporate offices of the Krystal restaurant chain (the restaurant chain offices have since relocated to Atlanta, Georgia). In addition to the railroad exhibits at "the Choo Choo", there are further exhibits at Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum , in east Chattanooga. The reputation given to

528-408: The band, sounding like a train rolling out of the station, complete with the trumpets and trombones imitating a train whistle, before the instrumental portion comes in playing two parts of the main melody. This is followed by the vocal introduction of four lines before the main part of the song is heard. The main song opens with a dialog between a passenger and a shoeshine boy : The singer describes

561-558: The city by the song also has lent itself to making Chattanooga the home of the National Model Railroad Association since 1982. In addition, the athletic mascot of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga was, for a time, a rather menacing-looking anthropomorphized mockingbird named Scrappy , who was dressed as a railroad engineer and was sometimes depicted at the throttle of a steam locomotive . Choo Choo DME,

594-637: The complex includes the Gardens restaurant in the Terminal Station itself, The Station House (which is housed in a former baggage storage room and known for its singing waitstaff) and the "Dinner in the Diner" which is housed in a restored 1941 Class A dining car . The music venue "Track29" is also on the grounds of the Chattanooga Choo Choo hotel in the building that formerly housed the city's only ice rink at

627-796: The duo played a feuding married couple. Langford was also the host of the NBC musical variety program Frances Langford Presents (1959), which lasted one season, as did a later program The Frances Langford Show (1960). Another notable appearance was in The Honeymooners lost episode "Christmas Party" which first aired December 19, 1953. Langford married three times, first to actor Jon Hall (1934–55). In 1948, they donated 20 acres (81,000 m ) of land near her estate in Jensen Beach, Florida to Martin County , which named it Langford Hall Park. In 1946, Langford

660-511: The film performance. The composition was nominated for an Academy Award in 1941 for Best Song from a movie. The song achieved its success that year even though it could not be heard on network radio for much of 1941 due to the ASCAP boycott . In 1996, the 1941 recording of "Chattanooga Choo Choo" by Glenn Miller and His Orchestra was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame . The song was written by

693-554: The final years of her life, requiring 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 her ashes were strewn off the coast of Florida near her residence. Langford has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame , one at 1500 Vine Street , which acknowledges her contribution to motion pictures and one at 1525 Vine Street for her work in radio. Both were dedicated on February 8, 1960. Langford

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726-472: The first to be certified a gold disc on February 10, 1942, for 1,200,000 sales. The transcription of this award ceremony can be heard on the first of three volumes of RCA's "Legendary Performer" compilations released by RCA in the 1970s. In the early 1990s a two-channel recording of a portion of the Sun Valley Serenade soundtrack was discovered, allowing reconstruction of a true- stereo version of

759-536: The instruments imitating the "WHOO WHOO" of the train as the song ends. The lyrics reference other popular songs of the 1920s and 1940s, such as " Nothing could be finer than to have your ham and eggs in Carolina ", "When you hear the whistle blowin'", " Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar ", and " Satin and lace, I used to call 'funny face' ". The 78-rpm was recorded on May 7, 1941, for RCA Victor 's Bluebird Records and became

792-665: The latter film, she sang " Chattanooga Choo Choo " with the Modernaires and the movie orchestra. 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 USO tours through Europe, North Africa, and

825-634: The popular song " Over There ". She also appeared on screen in Dixie Jamboree and Radio Stars on Parade . In 1946 she played the torch-singing lead in The Bamboo Blonde , showing off her ability to both vamp and act. In a Western movie, Deputy Marshal , she co-starred with her first husband, matinee idol Jon Hall . In several of Langford's films she appeared as herself, as in Broadway Melody of 1936 and The Glenn Miller Story (1953). In

858-501: The team of Mack Gordon and Harry Warren, allegedly while traveling on the Southern Railway 's Birmingham Special train. This was one of three trains operating from New York City via Chattanooga. The Tennessean continued to Memphis while the Pelican continued to New Orleans via Birmingham. The Southern Railway operated these trains in cooperation with the Norfolk and Western Railway and

891-541: The train route, originating from Pennsylvania Station in New York and running through Baltimore to North Carolina before reaching Terminal Station in Chattanooga, Tennessee . He mentions a woman he knew from an earlier time in his life, who will be waiting for him at the station and with whom he plans to settle down for good. After the entire song is sung, the band plays two parts of the main melody as an instrumental, with

924-498: The weekly column as a means of allowing the recovering troops to voice their complaints, and to ask for public support for making sure that the wounded troops received all the supplies and comforts they needed. Her association with Hope continued into the 1980s. In 1989 she joined him for a USO tour to entertain troops in the Persian Gulf. Langford worked for several years in the late 1940s on The Spike Jones Show and starred in

957-677: Was a supportive member of the Jensen Beach, Florida community and regularly donated money to it. She also supported the Florida Oceanographic Society located on Hutchinson Island . The site's visitor center bears her name and also houses some of her artifacts. In 2006, the Frances Langford Heart Center, begun by a bequest from her estate, opened at Martin Memorial Hospital in Stuart, Florida . Frances Langford

990-538: Was also White, who was now a seasoned character actor in Hollywood, that suggested to Langford that she go to Hollywood to give pictures a try. After a brief stint in the Broadway musical "Here Goes the Bride" in 1931, she moved to Hollywood, appearing on Louella Parsons ' radio show Hollywood Hotel while starting a movie career. Singing for radio during the early 1930s she was heard by Rudy Vallée , who invited her to become

1023-641: Was an extended production number in the 20th Century Fox 1941 film Sun Valley Serenade . The Glenn Miller recording, catalogued RCA Bluebird B-11230-B, became the No. 1 song across the United States on December 7, 1941 , and remained at No. 1 for nine weeks on the Billboard Best Sellers chart. The B-side of the single was " I Know Why (And So Do You) ", which at first was the A-side. The song opens up with

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1056-510: Was by Jerry Gray . The song has been recorded by numerous artists, including Taco , Beegie Adair , the Andrews Sisters , Ray Anthony , Asleep at the Wheel with Willie Nelson , BBC Big Band , George Benson , John Bunch , Caravelli , Regina Carter , Ray Charles , Harry Connick Jr. , Ray Conniff , John Denver , Ernie Fields , Stéphane Grappelli and Marc Fosset , John Hammond Jr. ,

1089-725: Was honored by her hometown of Lakeland, Florida, for her work with the United Service Organizations and her music and acting career. The city dedicated the Lake Mirror Promenade as the Frances Langford Promenade . The promenade was built in 1928 and was designed by renowned landscape architect Charles W. Leavitt . Langford supported Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower during the 1952 U.S. presidential election . After leaving Hollywood life, Langford continued with her pastimes of boating and sport fishing. As

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