Celebrity Death: Eleanor Collins, 104

[Xelebes]

Eleanor Collins passed away a day or two ago. She is most notable for hosting her show a year (1955) before Nat King Cole hosted his show, making her the first black person to host her own TV show. Not many recordings of her survive as she did not work in the recording studios all that much, instead having her career on radio and TV.

She started her career after winning a talent contest on CFRN radio (Edmonton) in 1935 and moved to Vancouver at the start of World War II, moving into the famous Hogans Alley neighbourhood. She worked the nightclubs there, eventually getting onto radio and then worked her way up to TV. She retired sometime in the 1960s but has done some performances since then.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/eleanor-collins-obituary-1.7132681

Click to read more...

 

[Lshap]

Eleanor Collins passed away a day or two ago. She is most notable for hosting her show a year (1955) before Nat King Cole hosted his show, making her the first black person to host her own TV show. Not many recordings of her survive as she did not work in the recording studios all that much, instead having her career on radio and TV.

She started her career after winning a talent contest on CFRN radio (Edmonton) in 1935 and moved to Vancouver at the start of World War II, moving into the famous Hogans Alley neighbourhood. She worked the nightclubs there, eventually getting onto radio and then worked her way up to TV. She retired sometime in the 1960s but has done some performances since then.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/eleanor-collins-obituary-1.7132681

I never heard of her. Her voice sounds like Ella Fitzgerald and she's prettier; makes you wonder how much talent goes unnoticed because it lacks the American marketing machine.

On the other hand, at 104 she outlasted all her better-known contemporaries. RIP.

 

[Xelebes]

I think much of her technique was based off of American artists with primarily the thought that that was what made jazz jazz. That was probably her biggest barrier to greater fame. It wasn't until here fellow church-member, Judy Singh, decided that that was not what made jazz jazz and brought the vocal stylings of a black Canadian church into prominence, and as a consequence would reshape the sound of Canadian R&B from there on.