Frances Wolfe (born March 4, 1926), known by her
stage name,
Fran Warren, is an
American popular singer.
She was born as to a
Jewish family in the borough of the
Bronx, in
New York City. After some time on a chorus line at New York's Roxy Theater, she auditioned with the
big band of
Duke Ellington at age 16; though she never made it into Ellington's band, she soon became a singer with bands led by
Randy Brooks,
Art Mooney,
Billy Eckstine,
Charlie Barnet, and
Claude Thornhill. It was Eckstine who gave her the stage name of Fran Warren. With Charlie Barnet, she replaced
Kay Starr as featured vocalist. In
1947, she made the charts for the first time, with the Thornhill band's recording of "
A Sunday Kind Of Love" on
Columbia Records. She made a number of other records with Thornhill that year.
In
1948 she went solo, signing with
RCA Records. On RCA she made a number of recordings, but her biggest hit was a duet with
Tony Martin, "
I Said My Pajamas " which reached No. 3 on the charts. Other recordings which she made include more duets with Tony Martin and with
Lisa Kirk.
In the early 1950s, after a number of her RCA records failed to chart, she moved to
MGM Records. She had a number of records for MGM, making her last chart hit in
1953 with "It's Anybody's Heart". She recorded the LP
Hey There! Here's Fran Warren, with arrangements and conducting by
Marty Paich (Tops/Pickwick, 1957).
Warren appeared as a guest on several television variety programs in...
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