Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular Music

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

FORAN, Dick

(b John Nicholas Foran, 18 June 1910, Flemington NJ, d 10 August 1979) Singing cowboy, guitarist and actor who had an impact 1930s-40s. The son of U.S. Senator Arthur F. Foran, he was educated at Princeton, worked as a seaman and special investigator, intended to be ome a geologist but sang on the radio and with dance bands. He worked in the theatre briefly, then to Hollywood and made his film debut in Stand Up And Cheer '34 for Fox. He had recorded popular songs as smooth crooner Nick Foran, but made his western debut in Moonlight On The Prairie '35; in the next three years signed to Warner Brothers he had changed his stage name to Dick and turned out a dozen western movies, scoring a hit with 'My Little Buckaroo' from Cherokee Strip '37. He appeared in several more films throughout the '40s, singing 'I'll Remember April' in the Abbott & Costello movie Ride 'Em Cowboy '42; altogether he appeared in over 100 movies, from leads in B pictures to secondary leads and supporting roles well into the 1960s. He also made radio jingles for Dr. Pepper; starred in the late '60s as Slim in a Burl Ives TV series.