JULIE LONDON The Best Torch Singer the World Has Ever Known
Channel: FemmeCentric
Date: 2022-02-06

Julie London considered herself to be an excellent housewife and mother. And she was. But she was also a pin-up model, a nightclubber, and she loved to gamble, drink, and was a heavy chain smoker consuming up to three packs a day. But all that aside, her true talent was being one of the best torch singers the world has ever known. She released 32 albums over her 40-year career. Additionally, she was an actress with 46 credits to her name on the big screen and television. 

She seemed to have no enemies. Everyone loved her. She was named the most popular female vocalist for 1955, 1956, and 1957 by Billboard Magazine.

Her career started as a young underage teenager singing in nightclubs, but she had to postpone singing in bars for a bit when her actual age was revealed. Nevertheless, she was unstoppable. At age seventeen, she appeared in a pin-up spread in Esquire magazine that became a favorite among the GIs during World War 2. And then, while still in high school, she was signed to do an exploitation film Nagonga in 1944 as a scantily clad Jungle Queen.

After several uncredited roles, she signed a contract with Warner Bros. Pictures, appearing in Task Force (1949) and Return of the Frontiersman (1950). She was then cast in the lead role of Pat Boyd in the film noir picture The Fat Man (1951), opposite Rock Hudson. After which, London turned down other Hollywood work to focus on her marriage to actor Jack Webb.

Their marriage produced two daughters and ended in divorce after six years in 1954. However, they remained good friends, and London again pursued her film and singing career. 

She became known as "The Liberty Girl" for helping establish Liberty Records as a successful label, where she began singing in 1955. Her many hit albums include "Julie Is Her Name," "Calendar Girl," with erotic cover photography by Gene Lester. In addition, "About the Blues," "The Wonderful World of Julie London," and the provocatively titled "Nice Girls Don't Stay for Breakfast."

Her most famous song, "Cry Me a River," was written by her former classmate and boyfriend Arthur Hamilton and produced by Bobby Troup, whom she married in 1959, and they remained together for forty years until he died in 1999.
London remained close with ex-husband Jack Webb, and in 1972, he cast her and new husband Troup in his television series Emergency! Webb was the executive producer. London played Rampart General Hospital's chief emergency-room nurse, Dixie McCall, and Troup was cast as emergency-room physician Dr. Joe Early. The show had a six-year run with 128 episodes, and she was in every one of them 

She seemed to have no enemies. Everyone loved her. Being able to remain friends with people was key to her remarkable artistic career. 

She was predominantly a torch singer. London possessed a contralto vocal range, described by critics as sultry, low-keyed, and intimate. A BBC Legends episode noted: "Some singers sing as though they are addressing a crowd; some sing as though they are in a bar with a lot of people—[London] sings as though she's in one room, with you—and that's the difference." 

She passed away in 2000 of cardiac arrest. London had been a heavy chain smoker from the age of 16. Unfortunately, this long-abiding friendship with tobacco turned out to be the only lousy friendship she had. She was 74 and will always be remembered.

MORE AT FemmeCentric.com