In 1929, Thelma Todd made some sound recordings at the Hal Roach studio. The idea was that these were to be released as phonograph records, but somehow nothing came of it.
Here we see some studio records of the recordings.
Composer Leroy Shield is listed as playing accompaniment on a piano. Eddie Dunn evidently sang one of the songs with Thelma Todd. Around this time he also appeared with her in HURDY GURDY, which was one of Roach's first talkies. The two would work together again afterwards in other films for Roach.
HOLLYWOOD FILMOGRAPH said in a 1929 publicity article that Thelma Todd had a
separate contract with Roach for making Victor records. But no such records were actually released.
Although Thelma Todd did sing ( I believe her actual singing voice can be heard in some of her movies, although "The Song Of The Gypsies" was dubbed in THE BOHEMIAN GIRL ), she was not primarily a singer, so perhaps it is no great surprise that Roach never released any of her records. Especially when he wasn't usually in the record business.
Discography:
http://books.google.com/books?id=YpWIfGgSpR8C&pg=PA544&dq=%22thelma+todd%22++%22eddie+dunn%22&hl=#v=onepage&q&f=false
Eddie Dunn:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Dunn_(actor)
Newspaper articles:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=1J9QAAAAIBAJ&sjid=vyEEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3318,5584628&dq=thelma-todd&hl=en
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=ocw_AAAAIBAJ&sjid=DA8EAAAAIBAJ&pg=4834,1884346&dq=thelma-todd&hl=en
HURDY GURDY:
http://www.lordheath.com/index.php?p=1_1326_Hurdy-Gurdy
Victor Records:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Talking_Machine_Company
A
Since the recordings were (apparently) never released---it would be wonderful to locate the "master" recordings of the songs. That is--if they still exist.
ReplyDelete