Belle Baker | |
|---|---|
 Baker in 1919 | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Bella Becker |
| Born | December 25, 1893 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | April 29, 1957 (aged 63) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Genres | Jazz Vaudeville |
| Occupation(s) | Singer Actress |
| Instrument | Vocals |
| Years active | 1904–1955 |
| Spouse | (married 1913–1918)
Lew Lewis
(m. 1913; div. 1918)Elias Sugarman
(m. 1937; died 1941) |
Belle Baker (born Bella Becker; December 25, 1893[1] in New York City – April 29, 1957, in Los Angeles) was a Jewish American singer and actress. Popular throughout the 1910s and 1920s, Baker introduced a number of ragtime and torch songs including Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies" and "My Yiddishe Mama". She performed in the Ziegfeld Follies and introduced a number of Irving Berlin's songs. An early adapter to radio, Baker hosted her own radio show during the 1930s. Eddie Cantor called her “Dinah Shore, Patti Page, Peggy Lee, Judy Garland all rolled into one.”[2]
- ^ Although Baker shaved off as many as five years from her age (her gravestone cites 1898), she was born in 1893, as confirmed by the 1915 New York census, which required the censee's age as of June 1, 1915, and lists Belle Leslie, living with her husband Louis and his family, as 21 years of age. She would turn 22 in December 1915.
- ^ Mordaunt Hall review of Song of Love Archived May 10, 2017, at the Wayback Machine, nytimes.com, November 14, 1929; accessed August 5, 2015.