Ozzie Nelson

Ozzie Nelson ( born March 20, 1906 in Jersey City, New Jersey as Oswald George Nelson, † June 3, 1975 in Los Angeles, California ) was an American singer and big band leader in the swing and popular music as well as entertainers, actor and television producer.

Life and work

Oswald " Ozzie " Nelson was known in the United States primarily through the radio and television series The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, on which he collaborated with his wife Harriet Hilliard and their two sons.

Nelson was the son of Swedish and English parents and grew up in the New York suburb of Ridgefield Park. Later he graduated from Rutgers University and then studied at the law school. Even in college, he played saxophone in a small campus - band, with whom he appeared in the summer holidays in Glen Iceland casino. The great response eventually led him to abandon his studies of law; he made the music during the Depression to his day job.

Ozzie Nelson founded in 1930 his own band in New York, the ausstach Ozzie Nelson band, the breakthrough came with a reader survey by the New York Daily Mirror, and even the orchestra of Paul Whiteman. In the 1930s to the mid-1940s, Ozzie Nelson's band took numerous recordings for Brunswick first, then for Vocalion, again for Brunswick and later for Bluebird on.

On February 16, 1931, the song Dream a Little Dream of Me was recorded for Brunswick Records.

1934 Nelson had a Hiterfolg entitled " Over Somebody Else's Shoulder " in which Nelson Harriet Hilliard introduced as his first Bandvokalistin; In 1932, he had already sung in duet with her when she came new in the band; these duets awarded the couple a huge popularity in the United States. In October 1935 they married. Hilliard remained until the birth of her first son in the band.

The couple has two sons, David (1936-2011), who later became an actor and director, and Eric (1940-1985) which was under the name Ricky Nelson a well-known singer and actor.

In 1935 Ozzie Nelson and his orchestra a number -one hit on the pop charts with " And Then Some"; Ozzie Nelson still has composed more songs like " Wave the Stick Blues", "Subway ", " Jersey Jive ", " Swingin 'on the Golden Gate" and " Central Avenue Shuffle". Johnny Burke also wrote another song material for Nelson's band.

Ozzie Nelson and his band also had several appearances in the musical films of the 1940s and had also repeatedly speaking roles, as in the musical Strictly in the Groove (1942 ). He was promoting his band with the then popular Soundies, which ran in the movie jukeboxes of the 1940s. 1952, when he and his family had already established itself as a radio and television stars, they played in the film Here Come the Nelsons with Rock Hudson.

In the 1940s, Nelson shifted ( by more time to spend with his family ) its activities on the participation in the Red Skelton 's radio show. Nelson developed and then produced his own radio series, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. This show had its debut in 1944; their sons were played by actors. 1952 moved the series to television, while the radio version was continued for two years. Nelson was producer of the series and worked on the scripts with. She was a synonym of the ideal American family life in the 1950s and was the longest sitcom in U.S. TV history.

His last TV show was Ozzie 's Girls, and ran from the fall of 1973 over a year when he had to cancel for health reasons; in this series Ozzie and Harriet rented the children to their ( now adult ) sons of two college students, one white, one black. 1973 Ozzie Nelson published his autobiography Ozzie.

After the dismissal of the sitcom Ozzie Nelson put his work as a producer and program director for several television shows such as Adam -12, The DA, and Bridget Loves Bernie.

Ozzie Nelson died of liver cancer and is buried with his wife and son Ricky at Forest Lawn Cemetery ( Hollywood Hills ) in Los Angeles.

At Ozzie Nelson remembers a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame ( 6555 Hollywood Blvd. ), Which he received for his services to the television industry. Together with his wife Ozzie Nelson was awarded another star ( 6260 Hollywood Boulevard) for his achievements in radio.

Disco Graphical Notes

• The Uncollected: Ozzie Nelson ( Hindsight, 1942)
• The Uncollected: Ozzie Nelson, Vol 2 ( Hindsight, 1937)

Works

Ozzie, ( Prentice Hall, 1973, ISBN 0-13-647768-2 ).