Glenn Miller

He attended the University of Colorado at Boulder, but dropped out to pursue private music studies with Dr. Joseph Schillinger.

He was, yes. At the time, he held the rank of Major.

Mrs Glenn Miller's christian name was Helen, and the lady passed on in 1966.

Ray Anthony's tenure with Glenn Miller was short and not very sweet. He was about 17 when he joined the trumpet section, and despite a good audition that won him the position his actual performances were very shaky. He left the band after a short period of time.

As he matured and became a better musician, Ray Anthony traded heavily on his brief association with Glenn Miller, not to mention his strong resemblance to movie heart-throb Cary Grant. He released a number of Miller-styled albums during the period from the late 1940s to the early 1960s, and continued to lead an orchestra performing Miller-like swing into the 1980s and 90s.

England, on the afternoon of December 15, 1944.

Yes, Roger Miller has 8 kids.

He actually never owned a plane. In 1942, Glenn Miller enlisted in the Army Air Force. He was originally supposed to be their Director of Bands for military music but instead started and led a 45-piece big band that included 21 string players.

His band was so good he was given permission to take it to England where where he gave over 800 performances. When Paris was freed from the Germans, he was supposed to take his band to perform there. His plane took off from Twinwood, England on December 15th 1944, but disappeared somewhere over the English Channel. No one has ever found any traces of him, his crew, or his plane. The plane was a single-engined UC-64 Norseman.

The cast of The Glenn Miller Band Reunion - 1989 includes: Perry Hart as Himself - Featured Vocalist Katheryne High as Herself - Featured Vocalist Jack Jones as Himself - Host Billy May as Himself - Conductor Ray McKinley as Himself - Featured Vocalist Kay Starr as Herself - Host Paul Tanner as himself John Vance as Himself - Featured Vocalist Zeke Zarchy as himself

Yes. Glenn Miller was extremely popular.

Yes, Glenn Miller married to Helen Burger in 1928

He was associated with Steve Miller Band and did play with them in the late 1960's as he was associated with a number of other music legends.

I don't know specifically where they are currently living; however, I do have some information on their careers. Daughter Jonnie spent most of her younger life as a stay-at-home parent. She has recently become more active in promoting her father's music and handling the affairs of his estate. Son Steve opted for a career as a gunsmith.

Many of Glenn's blood relatives inherited the same strong musical genes. Brother Herb was a originally a music teacher. After a period of some deep personal problems he moved to England where he led a successful dance band patterned on his brother's. He passed away in 1987 but his son John now leads the band, and daughter Wynne is a singer and dancer.

No. He had 2 adopted children. His wife Helen was ill and had a hysterectomy shortly after they were married.

Trumpeter Harry James

The singer most associated with the civilian band was of course Marion Hutton, one of the famous Hutton Sisters. Hutton tended to sing the up-tempo and novelty tunes. Also, Paula Kelly later joined the Modernaires and contributed a number of vocals.

A few other female singers such as Kay Starr and Dorothy Claire had brief tenures with the band, mostly when Marion Hutton was on maternity leave.

The AAF Orchestra did not have a permanent female vocalist because at that time the military was segregated both racially and sexually. However a number of famous singers made guest appearances, including Dinah Shore, Vera Lynn, and Irene Manning.

He didn't actually play it.

no

Yes, several times. He had a history of sinus problems aggravated by being a chain-smoker.

Well, it wasn't really by accident. Like most "luck" it occurred because he was well-prepared. During his time as an arranger for the Ray Noble orchestra, he developed an arranging style that carried the melody on an alto sax and trumpet playing a musical third apart, with harmony provided by the tenor sax. Unfortunately Noble's trumpeter was unable to play some of the higher notes (due to a lack of ability, NOT an injury as shown in the 1954 movie with Jimmy Stewart). Miller rescored the harmony by replacing the trumpet with a clarinet. The result was an almost organ-like blend that was instantly recognisable and became known as the "Miller Sound". That special arranging style was helped immensely when Miller formed his own band and hired Wilbur Schwartz to play clarinet. Schwartz had a full, "broad" tone that few other musicians could match, and it produced a more robust sound. For the first couple of years Miller had the blend amplified by addition of a second alto sax to the melodic line, but around the start of 1942 he switched the harmony to one alto and one tenor sax, creating a deeper voicing as is heard on performances of that period (e.g. "Moonlight Mood"). When he joined the Army Air Force in late 1942 and formed the AAF Orchestra he was unable to bring Wilbur Schwartz with him, so the clarinet part was assigned to Michael "Peanuts" Hucko. Hucko was an excellent musician but never had the same tone as Schwartz; however the reed blend was maintained by an expanded sax section (SIX reeds) and frequent accompaniment by the string section. Shortly before his disappearance, Maj. Miller said that he felt he was becoming trapped by listeners' wishes to keep hearing the reed blend, and he tried to move the orchestra's sound in a different direction. The long-suppressed commercial recordings that he made with Dinah Shore in late 1944 have only the barest hint of the reed sound. Of course, we will never know what more we would have heard, had the Major's plane made it to Paris on that terrible afternoon in December.

They all died in a plane crash.

A number of the "goofs" were liberties taken by the writers for various reasons. Just to name some of the most obvious:

> Tex Beneke, Ray Eberle, Marion Hutton, and the Modernaires were never mentioned.

> Little Brown Jug was the band's first major jazz hit, not the last.

> PE6-5000 was (and still is) the phone number of the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York where his orchestra was the house band, not the number of a place he stayed on the road.

> Helen Miller wasn't able to have children due to an illness, not an auto accident.

> The Army Air Force Orchestra is never shown with its string section.

> Singer Fran Warren is shown wearing a Chanel dress from the late 1940s, long after Miller's disappearance.

> When Fran Warren helps Jimmy Stewart onto the stage set up in an airplane hangar she can be heard to say "Thanks, Jimmy" instead of "Glenn".

He dropped it as a young child. He disliked the name because his mother always used it when she was unhappy with him.