LIVING LEGEND OF THE MONTH
Jill Corey, The Ultimate Diva
Photo: The legendary
Jill Corey on the cover of Life magazine, November 9,
1953. Ms. Corey, also, graced the cover of the book “Music,
Showbiz and Entertainment”, Volume III of the World Who’s Who
in Jazz, Cabaret, Music and Entertainment.
Norma Jean Speranza was born on September 30, 1935, the youngest of five children of a family sustained by a small family-owned coal mining operation in Avonmore, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh. The young Norma would very soon display signs of the inherent talent which would come to dictate her eventual role in life. In fact, Norma’s professional career began early, at age fourteen, when she began singing nightly with a local dance band, the Johnny Murphy Orchestra, for the princely sum of five dollars a night. Her loving and protective father permitted this arrangement so long as the young Norma kept up her school work, which she managed to do throughout high school. She graduated ninth in her class, but the few months following that graduation in May of 1953 constitute what many have likened to a true-life Cinderella story for the young ingénue. It was not long before an admirer of Norma’s talent arranged to have a tape recording made of her singing, and ultimately that recording found its way to Mitch Miller, then director of artists and repertoire at Columbia Records. Upon hearing the crude recording, including the sounds of passing trains in the background, Miller immediately arranged for the young Norma to be flown to New York for a bona fide audition.
One memorable day in
the late summer of 1953 that consisted of a dizzying sequence of
events proved to be the springboard to a life-long career. First,
Miller signed Norma to a seven-year contract with
Columbia Records. He would later admit that he had expected the
owner of the voice on the tape to be much older than the
seventeen-year-old who appeared. This speaks to the richness of the
young singer’s voice, as well as her interpretive skills even at so
young an age, and portends the glowing reviews she would receive for
those same qualities much later in life. Recognizing beauty as well
as talent in his young visitor, Miller promptly arranged for
auditions with Arthur Godfrey and Dave Garroway, both
pioneers in the then fledgling medium of network television in
1953. Offers of television contracts from both were immediately
tendered to Miss Speranza.
Finally, Miller had the foresight to alert LIFE magazine to what he clearly envisioned as the birth of a new star in the entertainment firmament. LIFE editors dispatched famed photographer Gordon Parks to Avonmore to document Norma’s small town roots and her preparations for leaving that tiny hometown for all the glitter of Manhattan. So it was on October 2, 1953, exactly two days after her eighteenth birthday, that Norma Jean Speranza debuted as lead singer on the Dave Garroway Show; Garroway’s new musical variety show on NBC television. There was just one small glitch along that path. Mr. Garroway and his associates at NBC felt that the name Norma Jean Speranza was not quite appropriate for their potential star. The story of Norma Jean’s rechristening is simple: Jill happened to be the name of the girlfriend of one of Garroway’s associates at NBC, while Mr. Garroway just picked the name Corey out of the Manhattan telephone directory. Thus it was Jill Corey who stepped onto that NBC stage and virtually into living rooms all across the country on that memorable Friday evening. On October 13, Jill recorded Robe of Calvary, her very first song for Columbia, a haunting religious ballad which soon reached a respectable position on the popular music charts of the day.
Then, barely two weeks later, the November 9th issue of LIFE hit the news stands with Jill adorning the cover in all her fresh-faced beauty. Inside was a full seven-page spread depicting her journey from friends and family in tiny Avonmore to New York, the stage of the Garroway Show and national television. The Garroway Show was not renewed after one season, but by then Jill had gained sufficient national exposure to be asked to tour during the summer of 1954 with several older established stars of the day. She also accepted the role of female lead singer on Stop the Music during its last year on network radio.
In September 1955, Jill journeyed to Hollywood to join Johnny Carson as resident singer on his half-hour comedy-variety program for CBS. This was followed the next year with a similar role on the Robert Q. Lewis Show. However, it was 1957 that saw Jill’s star ascend to its zenith.