With Rusty Warren adult comedy albums selling well, and looking fondly back at the success they had with cute Dorothy Provine, some funster at Warner Bros. decided it might be safe and profitable to put out an album of mildly risque songs done by a saucy-voiced blond. That's as good a theory as any for how record racks briefly held Joan Barton's album of sanitized Bessie Smith numbers ("Kitchen Man") and "sophisticated" tunes that Charlie Drew and other hotel nightclub bon vivants sang ("She Had to Go And Lose It At the Astor"). Joan, perhaps following the style of Mae West, figured "sexy" means adding an extra vowel on the punchlines. It's not that sexy at all nor is it, quoting a song line Joan sings, "oh so hot-teh." She also has a habit of over-doing her party girl-vamp persona by an almost corny, leering delight in emphasizing a double entendre. Like: "he can lick my sugar bowl."
And so we take a very quick look 'n' listen at Joan's "Low Lights and Laughs" album. "The Most Fun I Had Without Laughing," won't be the most fun you've had at the blog, and you won't be laughing. But you've gained in your knowledge of Joan the Obscure. (Anyone get the Thomas Hardy reference? Now you see what becomes of literacy...writing to nearly nobody on a free blog!)
Just who the hell was Joan Barton? Well, she wasn't Joan Barton -- she was born Ann Bock in McKeesport. She wowed the locals with her singing, and at just 14, now name-changed to "Mary Ann," she sang with Phil Spitalney's Orchestra. She sang on radio shows hosted by Rudy Vallee and other names nobody cares much about anymore. She did the obligatory USO tours and was welcomed by the soldiers because her measurements were 37-24-35. After the war, 1947, age 22, Joan reached the height of her success with a role in John Wayne's "Angel and the Badman," performing several songs. Sadly, attention spans were as short then as they are now, and she didn't get much film work after that. She was barely able to get small film roles...roles so small, she wasn't even listed in the credits. These included glimpses of her as a showgirl in "Two Tickets to Broadway" and a Harem cutie in "Aladdin and his Lamp."
Barton managed an "Ed Sullivan Show" appearance in 1950, worked nightclubs, and went from dating A-list guys like Dick Powell to rich guys who might be older, but carried a fat wallet.
Her marriage to rich Fred S. Guggenheimer, began and ended the same year. The 1950 divorce were fodder for some lurid headlines in both her show biz town of New York, and Fred's quieter digs in Lowell, Massachusetts.
Here's a file photo of Joan and Fred, along with the caption on the back...
Barton was married for a while to used-car dealer "Madman" Muntz, notorious for his pioneering hard-sell and totally ludicrous TV commercials. They had a daughter, gag-named Tee Vee Muntz. Joan would soon be Barton-Upon-Humble, because the "Madman" was not the kind to stay married to one woman for long. Muntz went bankrupt in 1959 and in 1962 Joan's saucy album, her return to show biz, failed to make cash registers ring for Warners. Bandleader Jerry Gray (his group was called the Band for Today) was her third and last husband. She may have sung a few numbers with Gray's touring band, but more likely she may have come along on gigs for the fun of it; a break from housewife chores. Jerry had a son from a previous marriage.
A salute to Joan Barton as we near the anniversary of her death, August 27, 1976. She was a fine singer. If you're not morbid, wait a month and celebrate her birthday, September 20th, 1925.
JOAN BARTON
The Most Fun I Had Without Laughing
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Well...for the most part a cool article with mostly factual stuff. She died as age 50 because she had gotten the fame bug with her early success. One barrier was that she fell from a ramp at a USO show during WW2 and broke her back. She was physical unable to perform. This is the partial background of the sad slide into alcoholism. Lucky for her she married big band arranger Jerry Gray who took care of her regardless. But he died August 10 1976. Barton died in 1977 nine months later...of alcoholism. Fame is a killer.
ReplyDeleteWhich is it, 1976 or 1977? It's confusing...
DeleteJerry Gray died in 76, Barton is 77.
Delete***in 77
DeleteThanks, Al. So sad to hear about her troubles. Kind of odd that with her physical ailments, she turned up on WB with this odd album. (I do realize that back then, promoting an album didn't necessarily involving touring or doing interviews.) "What demon is like alcohol?" E.A. Poe
ReplyDeleteJoan Barton's brief marriage to Fred S. Guggenheimer, President of the Scott Jewelry Company of Lowell, Massachusetts appear to have been excised from her biography. The couple married in 1948. It was his second marriage and ended in 1950 with scandalous accounts by Guggenheimer that Barton had threatened him with a knife.
ReplyDeleteJeez, there's certainly a lot going on with the Legendary (?) Joan Barton. I tracked down a piece in the local Lowell, Massachusetts newspaper (June 19, 1950) about Guggenheimer divorcing her and charging "cruelty," but the page reproduction was too small to read. Likewise, a NY Daily News article "Socks Wash Up Joan's Romance" (October 19, 1949) in which she told the world she was separating from her rich hubby. Joan would've been around 23 at the time (as Al Gray in the first post said she was 50 when she died in 1977). The pix of Joan and Fred (added after the comments above arrived) certainly show a big age difference.
ReplyDeleteFred Guggenheimer is/was my grandfather.great man when it came to his sport and work, when it came to women,the radar led him to the pretty one with a cocktail. married 3x. 3 x the radar never missed. He was a calm man. Did'nt like or want conflict. i wish he lived a bit longer.
ReplyDelete