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Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular MusicA B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ZWILSON, Julie(b 21 Oct. '24, Omaha NE) Cabaret and show singer. Her father was a coal salesman ('never home because he was out drinking'), mother a hairdresser; she sang with local bands, in a local production of Kurt Weill's Knickerbocker Holiday; she told Whitney Balliett that she hadn't understood 'September Song' because she was too young, but told Albert Williams for the Chicago Sun-Times, 'I was the biggest ham in the world ... I was a cheerleader ... anything I could do to get on a stage, I did it.' She won a Miss Nebraska contest but was kept out of Miss America when her mother squealed on her: she'd lied about her age. She attended Omaha U, joined Earl Carroll's Vanities on tour (which by then had been reduced to skimpily-clad girls cavorting on stage in two- bit towns), reached NYC '43. She was still too young; scooted back to Omaha, but soon returned; moved sideways but never up, finally got on Broadway: she began in the chorus on Three To Make Ready '46 (starring Ray Bolger), later toured in Kiss Me Kate and South Pacific (replacing Mary Martin in London), still later in Stephen Sondheim shows. She'd turned down the lead in The Pajama Game but later played it (after Janis Paige and Pat Marshall). She sang all the while in clubs and hotels, influenced by Billie Holiday, and matured into a fine interpreter, claiming all the while that she had no voice. Having taken everything showbiz could throw at her and gained critical recognition, she quit '76 to look after her teenaged sons in Omaha; made comeback '84 at Michael's Pub. Her friend singer/songwriter Peter Allen wrote show Legs Diamond '89 for himself, the part of the gangster's girlfriend Flo for her; she sang 'The Music Went Out Of My Life' and was nom. for a Tony (OC album on RCA), but critics clobbered the show as though they had been waiting for it; it closed after eight weeks (Allen d 18 June '92 of AIDS; he also wrote with Carole Bayer Sager, see her entry). She starred in a workshop production of Bob Merrill's Hannah ... 1939 c'89 about a Jewish designer in Prague (OC on TER UK). Four Wilson albums on DRG were songbooks of Weill (she now understands 'September Song'), Sondheim, Harold Arlen and Cole Porter. |