TOD:
I've talked about it before here, but I've already been interested in the singers who dubbed the singing voices for actors starting with the beginning of sound films. Just last night while watching THE SHOW OF SHOWS, there was a sister number, and the Costello sisters came out singing, and it obviously wasn't their voices. But who was doing the singing? For years, the studios kept the information secret either to protect a sensitive star or no one seemed to care whether Eleanor Powell was singing for herself (she wasn't) or not so no big deal was made about it. Some of the names of these ghost singers began to be made known when MGM began issuing soundtrack albums and we finally found out that it was Anita Ellis singing for Vera-Ellen in THREE LITTLE WORDS and THE BELLE OF NEW YORK or that Cyd Charisse was being dubbed by a host of folks from India Adams to Carole Richards.
And who were these studio singers anyway? Did they have careers of their own? (Some did like Gogi Grant who sang for Ann Blyth in THE HELEN MORGAN STORY).
I wish there was a listing of ALL the dubbed singing in the movies from the start of talkies on. And biographies of the singers who did a lot of dubbing behind the scenes. Really, only Marni Nixon has gotten much publicity about it down through the years (well, she did dub in three of the biggest and most successful movie musicals of all time, so it's right she's gotten recognition), but there were lots of dubbers who did far more work behind the scenes than she did.
