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00:04when julie london sings people have to listen her voice is just above a whisper and most often
00:11a rather melancholy whisper but judging from the success of her liberty records especially
00:16cry me a river miss london has found a considerable market for songs that are soft and sad
00:22twelve o'clock and cold outside and dark moonless night and such a frightful dark
00:46everything is strange and weird cheerful scenes have disappeared
00:58since you
01:00julie london is a nighttime singer you get the impression that she only really comes alive
01:08as the light goes down the picture which you get around her voice when you hear it without seeing
01:15her but hearing it it's a nighttime voice most of her albums really are about a kind of feeling of
01:28solitude and being alone come home you've had a hard day at the office you put julie london on
01:43of all the 50s singers who combined pure vocal talent with glamorous good looks no one came close
01:50to julie london with her sensual voice and movie star beauty julie was vinyl viagra pop music's original
01:59pin-up girl
02:01a short career produced over two dozen albums and one major chart hit
02:07yet through movies and soundtracks she's become a modern icon the essence of cool urban chic
02:17but this american beauty was no mere eye candy shy and introverted she was as much the suburban
02:25housewife as the sultry sex bomb julie london was very beautiful but it was quite odd beauty quite quirky
02:36she posed a lot in a in quite a cheesy sexual way but it didn't come across as the typical
02:4450s bombshell
02:51she had a unique style and so much heart she was an original original
03:00julie's was the voice of a brave new post-war world the spirit of a growing sexual confidence
03:07and freedom yet julie herself couldn't have been less like the vamp she was so often portrayed as
03:14i was surprised at how short she was i always thought she was like you know five foot nine or
03:24something like that but she was like five two i think or five three but a giant of a talent
03:34then it does you so much she was very quiet very shy and she was uncommonly beautiful
03:44was it an irresistible combination and yet she was untouched by that
04:06i first heard julie london at the same time that i first saw her which was in the girl can't
04:11help it
04:12which is the greatest rock and roll film i think ever made she just appeared and this voice and the
04:20song was so um haunting
04:23and i just remember years later when i became a singer myself i really wanted to do this song
04:56i first heard julie london in the mid-80s
05:01it was a bit of a resurrection in her career and and a lot of her stuff was reissued because
05:07at the
05:07time there there was quite a few sort of sultry soulful singers that were very popular like marie wilson
05:15sade and allison moyer each doing their own version of crimea river
05:21it was very sort of in the vogue really and and there was um in in at that point people
05:26were sort of
05:27harking back to the 50s um and so i think julie london took on a new resonance then and people
05:33really
05:33wanted oh who who was this woman and that jack foster on camera number one is the end this is
05:40sung
05:40especially for you jack you'd be so nice to come home to julie london was the quintessential glamorous 50s
05:55singer by the fire a supreme vocal stylist with a seductive voice and hourglass figure
06:02sang a lullaby you'd be all that i could desire
06:11under stars chilled by the wind
06:19at the height of her fame only marilyn monroe rivaled her for the hearts of american males
06:27first and foremost is she was really beautiful
06:32most of the great singers uh are not great beauties even male or female you know they're just
06:39they're not the best looking people in the world in hollywood she would go to a party and she would
06:44be in
06:44in a room full of her fellow actresses fellow performers she was the most beautiful woman in
06:49the room and her album covers made the most of that julie london lives in north hollywood about 400
06:57miles from where she was born in this nicely landscaped ranch style home sharing it with her when she was
07:03interviewed by renowned journalist ed murrow in 1958 julie's cover girl looks were as much a talking
07:10point as her vocal talents well julie since you yourself have frequently underplayed the quality
07:15of your voice as a singer how do you account for all the success well as a matter of fact
07:23and i can't account for it i don't know i don't think i'm really a very good singer at all
07:28well do you think the recent cover albums have anything to do with record sales
07:32yes i think they do terribly it's uh it's gotten to the point now where you have to do much
07:38more than
07:39than just put out an album you really have to work on your covers i will show you some if
07:44you like
07:45yes please do this is called calendar girl very funny thing about this album it took longer to uh
07:51shoot the pictures do all the art on it than it did to cut the album the music itself well
07:57is that
07:58your favorite cover yes i think so it took the longest time but despite her pin-up girl image julie
08:06insisted she was nowhere near as sexy as marilyn we're opposite types marilyn was the sex symbol
08:17i'm strictly the housewife mother type
08:25like so many modern women julie struggled to balance work and motherhood throughout her life
08:31often putting her career on hold to spend time with her growing family
08:39but to 50s america she was the ultimate domestic goddess
08:49they've got a very derogatory phrase young men now but you know mothers we'd like to shag you know and
08:55that's in a sense is exactly what julie was like she was like the classic you know grown-up older
09:00woman
09:00sophisticated and i think because the 50s there was this huge return to domesticity after women had
09:07been liberated to a certain extent during world war ii and were working in factories all the kind of
09:13cliches we recycle about the 50s which i think to a certain extent are true that it was you know
09:17it's
09:17the return to conformity and stuff like that julie kind of bridged that gap good night stacy
09:28like marilyn julie was a california girl a product of depression era america
09:37an only child she was born nancy peck in 1926 the same year as monroe her parents jack and josephine
09:46had been vaudeville performers and julie made her public debut age three on a local radio show
09:54a photographic business the family ran went bankrupt and in 1941 julie and her parents moved to los
10:01angeles in search of a fresh start
10:14using the stage name gail peck the precociously mature 15 year old briefly sang with a local big band
10:24she was 15 or 16 years old still looked 20. that was with i think maddie malnick's band in town
10:32biltmore hotel or something like that i wasn't allowed to go into clubs like that when when she
10:39was singing there i was too young so i i didn't know about that i heard about her having worked
10:44but
10:44by the time we met she was never sitting beside me in high school it was amazing to talk to
10:49somebody
10:49said well i was singing with a band a couple of years ago and i didn't know whether that was
10:53a
10:53you know group of six people you know but it turned out to be 18 or 20 guys in the
10:57band
11:11i'm looking for the boy with the wistful eyes oh i adore the boy with the wistful eyes
11:34so each other for maybe six seven months as a as a boyfriend and girlfriend
11:41but there was a lot of music involved in our relationship we were always singing to each
11:47other and uh and it was very enjoyable i learned a lot about myself from her
11:54the way that they looked at me
12:00and now all alone through two with the lives of my own
12:09and now all i am looking for i realize is a boy with the wistful eyes
12:18you're the boy of boys the guy of guys
12:26who me you're the boy with the wistful eyes
12:40she liked billy holiday i'm not a billy holiday fan but they both liked joe the mother loved billy
12:50holiday and they sang this song about beans and bacon and some of those songs well those kind of sad
12:57you know and god bless the child that's got his own so they did that kind of thing
13:02and then that's god we'll get then that's not we'll lose so the bible says
13:14and it's still is news
13:19your mama may have papa may have but god bless the child
13:34the teenage julie was forced to give up band singing when her true age was discovered
13:40that guy leaving high school she found work as an elevator operator in a los angeles department store
13:49and in true hollywood fashion it was here that she was spotted by talent agent sue carroll wife of
13:56the actor alan ladd always people noticed her when she was on a bus on a bicycle in a car
14:05or walking into a room
14:09and yet she was untouched by that
14:13she used to walk down hollywood boulevard and people were handing their cards the agents
14:19and she and my mother worked at the whole drug store at one time and julia came in one time
14:24to get
14:24a sandwich and a coke i guess on a lunch hour and they were handing her cards then
14:33she had a certain hollywood look that they want the big eyes you know the far apart eyes gorgeous hair
14:40you
14:40know
14:44she was uncommonly beautiful and delicate looking and when with an enormous sense of humor
14:56the
14:57sue carol changed gail's name to julie london and arranged a screen test for the young starlet
15:05why would two people want to be alone in 1943 aged 17 julie made her film debut alongside flash gordon
15:14star buster crab in the jungle drama nabonga we better just forget the whole thing when you talk
15:21sometimes i can understand what you say and sometimes it's just like the monkeys chatter
15:25i can't understand what they're talking about either from what little i've seen of julie's
15:30work she wasn't the most confident actress i think she had you know she had a certain something
15:36she always had a model's sense of herself rather than an actress's sense of herself i think it's
15:41probably why she was effective as a singer was that there was so much personality in her voice
15:47she had a persona she was a kind of classic star rather than someone who could kind of disappear
15:52into a role you can sleep there no i uh i think i better sleep outside i can't sleep well
16:00you know
16:00if i don't have a lot of fresh air all right then sleep in the trees with the monkeys if
16:06you want to
16:07despite her innate shyness and b-movie beginnings julie grew in confidence as an actress one film
16:14critic described her as a young betty davis provocative and decisively different
16:22what you got on my new play suit you like it it's all right you might as well still be
16:29working at the
16:29morgans for all the fun you are to me if you'd spend a little more time working around this place
16:34instead of preening your feathers like a pet canary maybe you'd know what it is to be tired at night
16:39i had a nice sunday picnic all planned for us tomorrow down by the stream i'm not going to waste
16:44it on you you sleep all day if you want to oh just till 10 or 11. you didn't sleep
16:51till any 10 or 11
16:51up at the morgans because you wanted to see her well the thing about julie london i think is that
16:57she
16:57also changes through her career so it's not as if she has a particularly consistent look she has looks
17:04through the through the years as it were that define her she's quite sort of sweet sweet faced with a
17:11sexual undercurrent earlier and she's much more obviously sexual when it gets into the 1960s
17:18but there are qualities that she has i mean she is
17:21very kind of sultry that with that one kind of wonderful voice i mean everything she does is
17:27imbued with a certain sexuality before we're finished we're gonna leave our kids a good farm
17:35i want to clear out of these hills when i get married since when since now i don't want to
17:42be just
17:42any farm wife as good a time as any other to find that out well if you love someone you'll
17:53do anything
17:58in 1947 julie married jack webb a struggling actor five years her senior the couple had dated on and off
18:06since before the war and shared a love of jazz
18:12despite strains in their relationship the pair had two children stacy and lisa julie put her movie
18:19career on hold devoting herself to raising the girls and supporting her workaholic husband
18:26when his tv show dragnet became a national hit webb began to spend more time at the studio and less
18:33and
18:34less at home eventually he stopped coming home altogether in august 1953 julie filed for divorce
18:49when you're a woman and your marriage breaks up you fall apart well at least i did
18:56i felt suddenly old and stupid uninteresting and unattractive
19:03i gave up my career when i married jack it was a mistake i thought i couldn't do both well
19:11have a career and be married but giving up my work defeated the purpose being out in the world meeting
19:18interesting people makes a woman more attractive to her husband it rounds you out so to speak
19:27i went with her to spend the night she was in a big hotel in hollywood and i spent the
19:33night with
19:33her and i guess she was very sad you know hurt really and we didn't she doesn't she didn't confide
19:42too
19:42much she kept things to herself terse i think would be the perfect word for her she would her answers
19:49were all terse she there was a story going around that uh when she and jack webb got a divorce
19:56he met
19:56her at the day of the divorce in the court and she was coming down the hallway and uh
20:03he opened the door for her and he said julie you look like a million and she said
20:11and walks into the door with the breakup of her marriage julie's confidence reached a new low
20:21then in 1954 on a rare night out with friends julie met the jazz pianist and songwriter bobby troupe
20:29the composer of route 66 it was love at first sight i knew the girl she was with at her
20:38table so i went
20:40over and sat down i didn't know who she was but i thanked her for coming to see me she
20:45said i didn't
20:46come to see you i came to see your guitarist that night she invited all of us out to her
20:52house we listened
20:53to records then all of a sudden she got up and sang little girl blue i just couldn't believe it
20:59that
21:00anyone that pretty could sing because beautiful women usually don't have that much talent that started
21:07the whole thing although smitten with julie troupe recognized her musical potential but even the hot
21:17young composer could not get the record majors to sign her yet bobby refused to give up and arranged a
21:25showcase for julie at a west hollywood nightclub she's on la cienega working in the supper club and all her
21:35friends from movie land and not just just known she wasn't known as a singer this is her first performance
21:43you know she performs at the at john at the supper club and it was just packed
21:53her nightclub debut was the first time julie had performed in public for more than a decade
21:59surprisingly shy and introverted she would struggle with stage fright and a lack of confidence throughout
22:05most of her career just about 10 minutes before i was to go on stage on the opening night
22:13i walked to an alcove which gave me a full view of the incoming first nighters taking their seats
22:20as i watched the people coming into the club i began to experience one of the most agonizing cases
22:27of stage fright i've ever had in my life then someone said you're on julie and i walked shakily onto
22:35the stage
22:37i was scared for her because i was that that far away so she got to one song she couldn't
22:44think of
22:44the words you know so she said she said called my name says dorothy what what's the next line i
22:49said i
22:50don't know i'm scared so i never did she just went on you know from there but she was a
22:55big hit
22:58also in the audience that night was sai waronka a hollywood arranger who just started a new label
23:05called liberty records
23:09the lights were turned off and a spotlight was focused on this girl sitting on a stool
23:15dressed in a tight-fitting black long-sleeved turtleneck sweater her face was beautiful
23:22and her cleavage unbelievable there were only two musicians with her a guitar and bass the lyrics
23:31poured out of her like a hurt bird if only i could record what i heard i rushed back to
23:38bobby troop
23:39and begged him to set up a meeting with julie julie signed to liberty records and recorded cry me a
23:48river
23:49the song that is indelibly linked with her name
23:52i think it's a very cleverly written song it also has the word plebeian in it
24:00so you kind of sing it and the audience go hey um but mainly it's obviously it's about a relationship
24:09where he's broken her heart in the past and she's moved on she's got over and he's come back
24:15and he i think he wants her back and she's saying no because i crumbled over you you know basically
24:22and now you can you can crumble over me
24:25now you say you're sorry for being so untrue
24:38untrue well yeah cry me a river cry me a river
24:49i cried a river
24:53cry me a river is really a revenge song
24:56but you can see julie's talent is selling a song like that uh in an almost distant cold style
25:05instead of being really inflamed and melodramatic it's kind of aloof and then little by little you
25:11understand the pain that she's feeling um and i know it was in a movie recently v is for vendetta
25:17and instead of using you know there's millions of angry hip-hop songs they could have used tons of
25:23thrashing punk songs they could have used and instead they use julie's version of cry me a river
25:27and it just accentuates that that element of revenge perfectly
25:34you drove me
25:37nearly drove me out of my head
25:43why'd you never
26:04it's a sort of singer's song if you like you can um do a real virtuoso performance with that one
26:11it demands quite a lot to sing it well um and sing it without being too vampy or too over
26:17the top
26:18um and i think julie london really made it her own um because she had enough restraint and enough
26:24passion she had the right balance to make it quintessentially hers
26:28and i love you
26:32i said you love me
26:35well i'm just a
26:37true
26:38you
26:42cry me around
26:45cry me around
26:49i can cry
26:58cry me around
26:59ironically the ultimate revenge song was julie's revenge on her ex-husband jack webb
27:05now a successful producer and director webb had planned to use cry me a river in his jazz film
27:11pete kelly's blues
27:15i had written it for ella fitzgerald to sing in film as i was under contract to jack webb at
27:21that
27:21time doing writing songs for pete kelly's blues after a couple of weeks jack called me into his
27:28office and he said people say that this song's not right for ella fitzgerald i said why and he
27:34said well they won't believe her saying the word plebeian so i said well i'll go change it if you
27:43want me to so i went back to my office and for three days i wrote bridges for that song
27:48i finally
27:49went back to jack and said i'm not really comfortable with any of them so he said okay
27:54the song is out of the film a couple of days later i was telling julie that the song was
28:00out of
28:00the film and she well i'm gonna go in and record do you mind if i record the song and
28:06i figured well
28:06she's being nice to me because she feels bad that jack threw the song out of the film and it's
28:12also
28:12a wonderful way to stick it to him if she was upset lots of good things there and i was
28:17also
28:18starving to death so i figured well i have nothing to lose you know let her do it so she
28:23recorded
28:23the song cry me a river was julie's only major chart success but her debut album put liberty records well
28:33and truly on the map too good to be true that's the way julie as her name sold more than
28:42three million
28:42copies an unheard of figure for a new artist on a new label you're just too good to be true
28:49and
28:50introduced a sound that influenced other singers and musicians i'm feeling so gay ever since you
29:00julia's her name was a really influential album just the guitar sound of the album was extremely
29:05influential not only for jazz performers and jazz guitarists but also a bunch of teenagers
29:11who would go on to be rock and roll guitarists um the biggest one i can think of is george
29:16harrison
29:17he always named barney kessel who played on that first julie london album as one of his you know
29:24idol guitarists matter of fact i think he called barney kessel the finest guitarist who ever lived
29:29i think it was quite brave to launch a career with just a guitar and a bass
29:33and you have to be fairly you have to be pretty certain of what you're doing because you've got no
29:39safety net there's no strings there's no echo there's nothing it's just your voice and these two
29:45and although later in life she used to go on and say oh i'm not really a singer i'm only
29:50a stylist
29:50you've got to be a singer to be able to do that she was approaching 30 so she kind of
29:55had her sound
29:56she she was she had experience um and this wonderful voice that had a chance to mature
30:03so she was just at the right time and also the mid 50s we're looking at
30:07pop in a period of transition where you're going from big band swing to to small jazz combos you've
30:14got rock and roll you've got r b and she managed to incorporate all those influences and feed that
30:19into her music she was she was very much of her time
30:30shadow woman leave my man alone from lonely girls to bachelor boys courting couples to suburban moms and
30:40dads julie's music touched the hearts of millions
30:46she recorded 30 albums over a 13-year career ranging from jazz to big band
30:54set him free bossa nova to modern pop classics
31:02but it was her haunting songs of love and sex heartache and pain that made her an instant hit with
31:09record
31:09bias what she did was torch songs that is lost love songs some singers sing as though they're addressing
31:21a crowd some singers that as though they're in a bar you know with with a lot of people she
31:27sings
31:28as though she's in one room with you and that's the difference let him love me for me
31:35the woman she didn't need to put filigree on on her rendition of a song she just sang its spine
31:47and its
31:47soul she just wanted to have fun singing he's all the man and i think that that intimacy is what
31:56people
31:56become aware of when he looks at me it's you he sees most of the great jazz singers we think
32:05of today
32:06jazz and pop singers um at that time it's really the same thing uh billy holiday uh frank sinatra ella
32:13fitzgerald sarah vaughn mel torme they all really come from the swing big band era and even people like peggy
32:21lee
32:21um it's probably the closest of the big big names to julie london um and sinatra you think of them
32:27as
32:27having a really intimate uh really low-key style but they actually really belted it out they had to
32:33sing in front of these big bands and big orchestras and julie had a different voice she was really a
32:38a fan of small nightclub jazz when julie made her new york debut even the big apples hard-bitten jazz
32:52critics were seduced by her charms this london girl not only looks like a million dollars but her voice
33:00is packed with a warmth which captivates an audience all she does is sit on a stool on stage and
33:07sing
33:08no wild arrangements no swinging of arms and head and no shouting of lyrics she's always on key
33:15and she phrases the music like an instrument her hit record cry me a river was no fluke this girl
33:24can
33:25sing it's a wonderful quote i read she once said that she had a thimble full of voice and that
33:31she had to
33:31get really close to the microphone to you know to put it across there was an intimacy about it and
33:36let's face
33:37it music popular music whether it's rock and roll or whether there's more kind of jazz standard kind
33:41of music that julie put across a lot of it's about sex it's about the body it's about intimacy
33:50and i think you get that kind of bedroom equality to listen to you feel like she's singing for you
33:55whether you're a man or a woman there's something that draws you into her world
34:05to the acclaim of her peers and industry critics julie was voted one of the best and most exciting new
34:12female singers of the 1950s
34:16but her voice wasn't the only thing that won her adulation
34:20her sexy sometimes racy album sleeves would approve as popular as her music
34:26one journalist described them as generating enough voltage to light up a theater marquee
34:34even her record label conceded that julie's success owed as much to her album covers as her musical talent
34:44i like provocative covers but julie london's was an accident an amateur photographer got that she wasn't
34:52standing up but declining on a couch the background was clean so we just cut out the couch i cropped
34:59it
34:59for her cleavage it hit exactly what i wanted because there was a certain dirty appeal about it
35:06when the disc jockeys got their copies of the album they almost invariably talked about the cover
35:12i'll never forget al jarvis a popular disc jockey at the time saying on the radio today i have a
35:17surprise
35:18i'm not going to play julie's record i'm going to play her album cover there was so much time i
35:25think
35:25taken over her record sleeves and they're all portraits they're all just her face you know um
35:32which is is something that i've completely and utterly copied because i just think if you're looking
35:37for an album by someone you like you want to see their face
35:42the first approach with julia as you can see by the first cover was cleavage and shoulders and a
35:49beautiful face uh and i certainly don't knock that those are marvelous ingredients but you can't do that
35:59for 30 albums got to be able to do something that intrigues the visitor when you get an artist like
36:13julie
36:13london who is as beautiful as she is talented it's a challenge to the photographers to try to do something
36:24that not only meets your standard of photography but meets her standard of performance
36:37you hear a voice and you have a mental picture of the of the person it may be nothing like
36:41the person
36:43for instance you hear ella fitzgerald who's always sounded young even when she was middle-aged she
36:47sounded young she sounded like the perfect female voice ella fitzgerald was no pin-up and never had
36:54been even when she was young and when they made as the album started coming out they tended not to
37:00have ella's photograph on them they tended to have designs or something like that whereas in the case
37:06of julie london well i mean she was a very beautiful girl she had that night time look which fitted
37:11perfectly
37:12with the repertoire that she sang and the style in which she sang and so the whole thing came together
37:19another sunny her image was kind of embedded in those album covers which are so distinctive they
37:25kind of combined pin-up with a certain classiest classier kind of quality about them
37:32the lp became something this very collectible object that everybody wanted to have and those
37:38album covers really kind of broke julie and also helped her find where she needed to be
37:54she always looks like she's having fun but she's not exactly betty page there's something a little
37:59bit more kind of prim about her a little bit more mature and the kind of come hither quality you
38:05see
38:05on those lp covers you know really gets it just right there's a kind of balance of elegance and
38:10precision and sort of you know invitation but in the most kind of demure sort of way
38:16i sit alone most every night he doesn't phone he doesn't write
38:26with that era you get a kind of siphoning off onto particularly film and music stars desires sexual
38:33fantasies sexuality whatever in a rather prim and prudish society superficially and in that she's kind
38:40of quintessentially of the 1950s in america the 1950s is sort of defined in many ways by the by the
38:50findings of kinsey
38:54what kinsey laid bare was the fact that actually america wasn't a prudish society at all
39:02but that there was lots of sex going on there was lots of sexual fantasy going on it was just
39:08that they
39:09didn't talk about it that much and so it kind of came into the open they were incredibly successful
39:16books and people bought them obviously they're they're great reads i think so someone like that
39:22who in a way crystallized this whole notion of well we're not allowed to talk about it but
39:26we know it's going on everywhere and there's something about that in in her performances
39:32if i may i would like to present another gentleman to you his name is mr
39:41donald bagley and mr bagley plays his instrument very well
40:18i'm
40:31back up
40:32Bye, bye, Blackbird.
40:37It makes me laugh the way Julie treated various standards.
40:43I mean, she turned them on their head, effectively.
40:47I mean, I think of Bye, Bye, Blackbird, which is a sort of novelty tune,
40:50and she turns into this really sort of steamy, seductive thing,
40:54and she's singing almost a cappella.
40:58She's flirting madly with the double bass player,
41:01and it, whew, you know, it's amazing the way she performs that one.
41:13Whereas Sinatra really took, uh, is famous for taking ballads and swinging them,
41:18Julie took the opposite approach, and she also often took up-tempo numbers
41:21and really turned them into these languorous, uh, you know, laments or love songs.
41:30My baby don't care for shoes
41:35My baby don't care for clothes
41:42My baby just cares for me
41:57It's very interesting, because hers is so much more sensual.
42:02When Nina Simone sings it, it's kind of like she's in charge.
42:05My baby just cares for me, because I've told him so, you know,
42:08because I'm telling him he has to care for me.
42:10That's kind of her perspective on it, I think.
42:13Um, but when, when Julie sings it, it's like she's just got out of bed.
42:20For rings
42:22Or other
42:26Expansive things
42:29He's sensible as
42:32Can be
42:39Anyone can put on a sparkly dress or high heels.
42:42Um, and they might be very pretty, but they won't be glamorous,
42:47because glamour is kind of something from within.
42:54Yet, for all her Hollywood glamour and movie star lifestyle,
42:59the role Julie most enjoyed was that of the suburban California housewife.
43:05Hey, little girl, comb your hair, fix your makeup, soon you will open the door.
43:18Don't think because there's a ring on your finger, you needn't try anymore.
43:38She was kind of, you know, the classic, beautiful, glamorous, Californian mother.
43:44There was a publication when I grew up with called Sunset, which is still going to this day,
43:49which sort of celebrated gardening, cooking, lifestyle.
43:52It was kind of a wallpaper of its generation, and there was something about all the shots
43:56of Julie in her fabulous home with her children, of course, not her husband,
44:00which just make me think of Sunset magazine and that sort of easeful style.
44:04She's like the, the ultimate glamorous suburban mom.
44:08Even the shade of blonde her hair was, which was a kind of sandy, natural blonde,
44:12rather than a brassy, platinum Marilyn Monroe or Jane Mansfield blonde,
44:17was very kind of Californian, the sort of naturalness, that sort of easefulness,
44:22which is very typical of the West Coast.
44:29Julie and her fiancé, Bobby Troop, had tied the knot in 1959 and soon had a Brady Bunch house full
44:37of children.
44:39As well as her daughters from her marriage to Webb, Julie became stepmother to Bobby's two teenage girls.
44:45The couple would go on to have three more children, a daughter and twin boys.
44:50So important was home and family to Julie that she recorded an entire album in her living room.
45:06You'd be so nice to come home to
45:11My favourite Julie London album is At Home With Julie.
45:17It was recorded in her house. People just came over.
45:21Jimmy Rolls, who later was a mentor to Diana Krall, and one of the really unsung piano greats,
45:27led the album. It's got people like Alveola on guitar.
45:31And you can just feel the good vibes.
45:35She wanted to do an album with a, with a quintet or sextet, I think it was.
45:39And it was called Julie at Home. And we had fun doing that. And, and again, now she was having
45:45a good time.
45:46And we were just at her house.
45:50It's a wonderful opportunity because you look at Julie in her house and you think about how great it is.
45:59I wish we could do something here. And, you know, but that was something you never thought would really happen.
46:04And then apparently Bobby Troop and Cy and Julie were sitting down and they came up with this idea of
46:11why not have all the musicians come up here. The house is big. We've got the room. It's acoustically great.
46:19And why don't we record it up here?
46:22Recording at home was not a thing that was happening a lot.
46:28And again, no music.
46:32We just, we just talked about, well, with the key, we checked out her keys and everything.
46:39And just, that's what, that was it. And it worked.
46:44Let there be you, let there be me, let there be oysters, under the sea, let there be wind,
46:59and occasional rain, chili con carne, sparkling champagne.
47:09And she was really a fan of small nightclub jazz.
47:13To sing in the trees.
47:15So for 15 years, basically, she was going to clubs, hanging out and singing these bands,
47:20and then she decided that she could have a professional singing career.
47:23And that kind of feel, it's like almost the beautiful girl in the bar just stood up and sang.
47:29But first of all, please, let there be love.
47:34The thing that moved her so, that got to her center, was jazz.
47:41Both instrumental and vocal.
47:44Amazing how she would react to that.
47:47She really wanted to talk about jazz and what is everybody doing on Thursday night.
47:53Come on by at 9 o'clock, and we'll start singing at 12.
47:57And sing until 5 in the morning.
48:00It begins to tell around midnight, around midnight.
48:08We would go out nightclubbing, then end up at the house with some of the musicians that we had met.
48:16You couldn't get out of there.
48:17The sun would be coming up and she'd, wait a minute, before you go, there's one more.
48:20Ray Charles Tooney, you've got to listen to.
48:23And so you'd be there listening to these recordings.
48:27They had a marvelous recording system.
48:30She knew how to throw parties, and she wanted everybody to have a good time,
48:34and she wanted everybody to know that if you played something, you could play.
48:38You could play that instrument, you could sing, you could do this.
48:41That was her joy, as long as she got a chance to sing at 2 or 3 o'clock in
48:46the morning.
48:51Many of Julie's albums were recorded late at night, when her voice was at its most warm and open.
48:59She rarely enjoyed touring, and was more at home in nightclubs and cabaret than large concert halls.
49:07I really don't enjoy performing that much, unless everything is perfect, which is what you always
49:13hope for. In the clubs, if the music is perfect, if you're in good voice, if the material is great,
49:20well, then it can be fun. But if one of those things is off, then it's just painful.
49:27She had to overcome that shyness that she had. She, I think, was very uncomfortable in front of an
49:38audience, did not eat the audience the way we see people today. They stand there 16 years old,
49:45and it's, you know, it's kind of a freedom that some singers can achieve, and most cannot.
49:51And Julie was uncomfortable in the spotlight.
49:58Well, once I had a man as sweet as he could be.
50:06Once I had a man, and he was oh, so runny.
50:35She did not enjoy performing like Bobby Troop did.
50:40Bobby Troop would play the piano and sing in Gelson's, which is a shopping mall here, a food place.
50:53He just loved to entertain.
50:56Julie didn't really love to entertain that much.
51:09She didn't like some singing jobs. She kept saying how scared she was. Here she was singing
51:16for a long time, Las Vegas, Japan, go all over the world, more or less, and yet she was always
51:22afraid.
51:22And I never could figure it if you're a good singer, but evidently there is just something inbred, you know,
51:28in people.
51:30And call me baby
51:44I can see by looking at her that she was really singing from her throat and not really singing from
51:49her diaphragm.
51:52What do I sound like? How right on am I?
51:55But, um, so that kind of surprised me, and I thought, ooh, I wonder how long after that she could
52:00keep singing.
52:01Because with the footage and with her albums, her voice gets lower and lower and lower with each passing Marlboro.
52:08So I smoke a little too much
52:13And I joke a little too much
52:18And the tunes I request
52:22Are not always the best
52:25But the ones...
52:26Julie recorded her final album in 1968.
52:30So I go...
52:32In the 1970s, she and Bobby appeared together in Emergency,
52:38A hugely popular TV series produced by her first husband, Jack Webb.
52:43The show ran for five years, with Julie receiving a Golden Globe nomination for her portrayal of head nurse Dixie
52:51McCall.
52:52Many of her new fans were not even aware she'd been one of America's most acclaimed singers.
52:58Never heard Julie ever sing out of tune, anytime, and she won't sing anymore.
53:04You really... You know, I don't understand it.
53:06We all hate that, really.
53:08I don't understand it.
53:09You know, you do records, but you won't sing in person.
53:13Well, um, I'll tell you, we've been doing the show now for close to five years.
53:19And the first four years after we started doing the show, I sounded pretty good.
53:26You sound good now.
53:27No, I don't.
53:28Yes, she does.
53:29Sing two lines of, cry me a river, cry me a river.
53:32Just two lines.
53:33It's one of you.
53:34I was checking it out.
53:35Doesn't mean anything.
53:36Just try it.
53:36Two lines.
53:37That's all.
53:37How do you know that's my key?
53:41I'll pick the sexiest one I could find.
53:43Go ahead.
53:43I cried a river over you.
53:47Oh.
53:53I just assumed that she would record forever, and being married to a prolific songwriter,
54:00who Bobby was, I assumed that she would never be able to get away from singing,
54:08because he would probably say, here, I've got another song for you.
54:10So I was surprised that she would stop.
54:13I don't know why that was.
54:15I always assumed it was because of her children.
54:23When emergency ended in 1978,
54:26Julie devoted her remaining years to her family and grandchildren.
54:33In 1995, she suffered a stroke from which she never fully recovered.
54:39Her devoted husband, Bobby Troop, died in February 1999.
54:44The following year, on October 18th, her late husband's birthday,
54:50Julie London died of cardiac arrest in a California hospital.
54:53She was 74.
54:58I was talking to Linda Wheeler the other day about her last night,
55:05and she and Caroline. Caroline went to high school with Julie.
55:09And they went over to her house and brought out some music,
55:15music, and she got all made up.
55:20On a nice, cool night, and she was listening to Ray Charles.
55:27You drove me here, you drove me out of my head.
55:31And really started tearing up a little bit.
55:36And, uh, she died the next day.
55:41But had a marvelous night that night.
55:52I love you, you said you loved me.
55:59I'm just a proof of you.
56:23I don't think that people have named her as one of the great singers of that age.
56:30And I think that, uh, the further we get away from that time that she was singing, uh,
56:39uh, she will be considered as, uh, as somebody who was a major contributor
56:44in the, in the, in the singing and jazz field and, and, and ballads.
56:57Maybe part of the reason she didn't sort of become a huge legend or a huge icon, um,
57:03was because she didn't have a really emotive story attached to her,
57:07like so many of these other artists.
57:09She didn't have the sort of whiff of tragedy and, um, it was maybe difficult.
57:14And she was quite a private person as well.
57:17Um, and, uh, uh, in that way, maybe it was less easy to sell as a diva.
57:24She was a really a great artist of her time.
57:26But, you know, now the genre is sort of seeing less as jazz
57:29and as easy listening as lounge music.
57:31And there was a real kind of appreciation of that kind of cocktail,
57:34martini-drinking generation.
57:36Her cool, you know, is, is very timely now.
57:42I think she got very much what she wanted,
57:45as far as movies and, and the recording.
57:48But she never wanted the singing for some reason.
57:52And yet she was better at it, you know.
58:01And now she got very much how long are you doing?
58:04And now she's time to say goodbye
58:13To our company
58:21If I see
58:28K-A-Y
58:37In the old U.S.
58:43In the old U.S.