Forgotten crooner Ruth Etting is known as Americas sweetheart of song. Her signature tunes were Shine On, Harvest Moon, Ten Cents a Dance and Love Me or Leave Me. Her other popular recordings included Button Up Your Overcoat, Mean to Me, Exactly Like You and Shaking the Blues Away. Ruth Etting was born in David City, Nebraska in 1896 to Alfred, a banker, and Winifred (née Kleinhan) Etting. She left David City at the age of sixteen to attend art school in Chicago. She got a job designing costumes at the Marigold Gardens nightclub, which led to employment singing and dancing in the chorus there. While Etting enjoyed singing at school and in church, she never took voice lessons. She admitted to patterning her song styling after Marion Harris, but created her own unique style by alternating tempos and by varying some notes and phrases. She became a featured vocalist at the nightclub, and married gangster Martin Moe the Gimp Snyder on July 17, 1922 in Crown Point, Indiana.[ He managed her career, booking radio appearances and, eventually, had her signed to an exclusive recording contract with Columbia Records. She made her Broadway debut in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1927. While the original plan for the show was for Etting to do a tap dance after singing Shaking the Blues Away, Etting later remembered she was not a very good dancer. At the shows final rehearsal, Flo Ziegfeld told her, Ruth, when you get through singing, just walk off the stage. Etting also appeared in Ziegfelds last Follies in 1931. She later recalled, I was no actress, and I knew it. But I could sell a song. She went on to appear in a number of other hit shows in rapid succession, including Simple Simon and Whoopee!. She made a long series of movie shorts between 1929 and 1936, and three feature movies in 1933 and 1934. In 1936, she appeared in London in Ray Hendersons Transatlantic Rhythm.[5][8] Etting also had her own twice weekly 15 minute radio show on CBS in the 1930s.[5] By 1934, Etting was on NBC with sports announcer Ted Husing doing the announcing and Oldsmobile sponsoring her program. After an unissued test made by Victor on April 4, 1924, she was signed to Columbia Records in February 1926. She remained at Columbia through June 1931, when she split her recording between ARC (Banner, Perfect, Romeo, Oriole, etc.) and Columbia through March 1933.[10] She then signed with Brunswick and remained there until May 1934, when she re-signed with Columbia through July 1935. After a solitary Brunswick session in March 1936, she signed with the British label Rex and recorded two sessions in August and September, 1936. She returned to the US and signed with Decca in December 1936 and recorded until April 1937, when she basically retired from recording. Etting, who made many of her own clothes, did her own housekeeping and lived frugally. She divorced Moe Snyder on the grounds of cruelty and abandonment on November 30, 1937, aged 40. Snyder did not contest the divorce and received a settlement from his former wife. Etting gave her ex-husband half of her earnings at the time, $50,000, some securities and a half interest in a home in Beverly Hills, California. Etting deducted the gambling debts of Snyder she had paid and costs she paid for a home for Snyders mother. She fell in love with her pianist, Myrl Alderman. In January of 1938, Etting began receiving threatening telephone calls from Snyder, who initially claimed Etting withheld assets from him when the divorce settlement was made. Snyder was also upset because of reports that Etting was seeing another man. Snyder told Etting that he would come out to California and kill her. Snyders first threat was delivered to his daughter, Edith. When Snyder telephoned and found his ex-wife unavailable, Snyder told his daughter that he would fix her ticket, too. He called again that evening; this time Etting took the call with her cousin, Arthur Etting, listening on an extension. Etting requested police protection after the telephone call and arranged for private protection. She believed the danger was over when Snyder did not appear soon after his telephone call and released her bodyguards. On October 15, 1938, Moe Snyder detained Myrl Alderman at a local radio station and forced the pianist to take him to the home of his former wife. In the house at the time were Ruth Etting, and Edith Snyder, Moe Snyders daughter by a previous marriage who worked for Etting and remained living with her after the divorce. Snyder held Etting and Alderman at gunpoint; when told his daughter was in another part of the house, he made Etting call her into the room. Snyder said he intended to kill all three, and told them to be quiet. When Myrl Alderman opened his mouth to attempt to say something, he was shot by Moe Snyder. Snyder then told his ex-wife, Ive had my revenge, so you can call the police. Snyder claimed Myrl Alderman pulled a gun and shot at him first and that his ex-wife would not file charges against him because she still loved him. Snyder also claimed he was drunk when he made the telephone threats to Etting in January 1938, saying that at the time his intentions were to kill both his ex-wife and himself. Ruth Etting said that the only gun in the home belonged to her, and after the shooting of Alderman, she was able to go into her bedroom and get it. Upon seeing Ettings gun, Moe Snyder wrested it away from her; it landed on the floor. Snyders daughter, Edith, picked it up and held it on her father, shooting at him but hitting the floor instead. During a police reenactment of the shooting three days later, Edith Snyder said that she fired at her father to save Ruth Etting, weeping as she continued, I dont yet know whether I am sorry I missed my Dad or whether I am glad. Snyder was accused of attempting to murder his ex-wife, his daughter, and Ettings accompanist, Myrl Alderman, kidnapping, as well as California state gun law violations. Three days after the shooting of Myrl Alderman, the pianists second wife, Alma, sued Ruth Etting for alienation of her husbands affections. Though Etting and Alderman claimed to have been married in Tijuana, Mexico in July 1938, Alma Alderman said any marriage was invalid, because her divorce from Myrl Alderman would not be final until December 1938. Police investigators could find no record of the couples Mexican marriage. Ruth Etting testified that she was not married to Alderman and that she believed the reason for Aldermans neither denying nor confirming marriage rumors was that he thought they would be safe from Moe Snyder if it was believed they were now married. The second Mrs. Alderman also called Moe Snyder, the ex-husband of Ruth Etting, as a witness regarding an attraction between her husband and Etting. Myrl Aldermans first wife, Helen, also appeared in court, claiming that Alma Alderman had spirited Myrl away from her. Alma Aldermans law suit ended in December 1939, with the court finding that she was not entitled to damages from Ruth Etting. Snyder was convicted of attempted murder, but released on appeal after one year in jail. Snyder won a new trial but returned to jail in January 1940 in lieu of bail. The couple relocated to an eight acre farm outside of Colorado Springs in 1939 and she remained married to Myrl Alderman until his death in 1966. Ruth Etting died in Colorado Springs, Colorado in 1978, aged 80. Ettings life was the basis for the fictionalized 1955 film, Love Me or Leave Me, which starred Doris Day (as Etting), James Cagney (as Snyder) and Cameron Mitchell (as Alderman). Etting, Myrl Alderman and Moe Snyder all sold their rights to the story to MGM; Snyder was living in Chicago in 1955. Shortly before her death, Etting said she thought that Jane Powell would have been a better choice for the lead.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Mar 2014 18:02:04 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015