Description
Rudy Vallée (July 28, 1901 – July 3, 1986) was an American singer, actor, bandleader, and entertainer. He was one of the first modern pop stars of the teen idol type.
Vallée became the most prominent and, arguably, the first of a new style of popular singer, the crooner. Previously, popular singers needed strong projecting voices to fill theaters in the days before the electric microphone. Crooners had soft voices that were well suited to the intimacy of the new medium of the radio. Vallée’s trombone-like vocal phrasing on “Deep Night” would inspire later crooners such as Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and Perry Como to model their voices on jazz instruments.
Vallée also became what was perhaps the first complete example of the 20th century mass media pop star. Flappers mobbed him wherever he went. His live appearances were usually sold out, and even if his singing could hardly be heard in those venues not yet equipped with the new electronic microphones, his screaming female fans went home happy if they had caught sight of his lips through the opening of the emblematic megaphone he often sang through. A brief caricature of him in the Fleischer Brothers’ color Betty Booptheatrical short cartoon from 1934 Poor Cinderella depicts him singing through a megaphone.
Here is a genuine bank cheque, hand signed by Rudy Vallee in 1934, comes complete with the market leading Presley Collectibles 90 day unconditional money back guarantee and our lifetime COA.