Frank Parker (April 29, 1903* – January 10, 1999) was an American singer and radio and television personality.
Parker was born Frank Ciccio on April 29, 1903 in New York City. He studied at the Milan Conservatory of Music. Though Italian-American, he became associated with Irish songs. He started out in vaudeville and on Broadway, appearing in the shows What’s in a Name? (1920), No Other Girl (1924) and a revival of No, No, Nanette (1925-26). In 1926, he began singing with Harry Horlick’s Orchestra, an association which led to two Vitaphone shorts with the band in 1929 and 1935.
An October 30, 1930, newspaper listing shows Parker singing on the Van Heusen Program on WABC in New York City. Also, in the early 1930s, he was a featured singer with Donald Voorhees and his orchestra on the Bond Sunshine Program on WEAF in New York City. This led to a stint as the featured singer on The Jack Benny Program (the slot that would later be filled by Kenny Baker and Dennis Day). This raised his profile tremendously.
Parker's tenure with Benny ended in the fall of 1935. When Michael Bartlett replaced Parker on the program, a newspaper article noted: "[Benny] turned Frank Parker into a tenor with a keen sense of humour ... Frank Parker asks $3,000 a week from theatrical booking agents, and usually gets it."
In 1934, he sang in the all-star film Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round and was the m.c. in Romance in the Rain. In 1935 he got his own bona fide starring role in a movie, an independent musical produced in Astoria, Queens called Sweet Surrender. That same year, Parker briefly had his own radio show, The Atlantic Family on Tour, which was heard on 36 CBS stations. In September and October 1936, Parker and Ramona (no last name printed) were featured on a 15-minute weekly program on WEAF in New York City and WMAQ in Chicago.
In 1937 he appeared in the Broadway show Howdy Stranger, and began singing on Andre Kostelanetz’s radio program, an association that would last into the 1940s. Parker was also the featured male singer on Your Home Front Reporter, which was broadcast on CBS in 1943. From 1944 through 1946 he co-starred in the long-running musical Follow the Boys (1944-46) with Jackie Gleason, Gertrude Niesen, and Buster West.
Starting in 1949, the advent of television gave his career a new shot in the arm. The Teleways Company advertised "156 brilliant 15 minute musical programs," episodes of the Frank Parker Show that were available to radio stations via transcription. The 1950s saw Parker become a member of the Little Godfreys cast of singers on Arthur Godfrey Time and Arthur Godfrey and His Friends until around 1956. Parker had known Godfrey since the 1930s.
He began appearing on the variety shows, giving performances on the shows of Ed Sullivan, Jackie Gleason, Steve Allen, Jack Paar, and Mike Douglas through the early 60s. He was also a co-host on the game show Bride and Groom in the 1950s, and appeared in the film Paris Follies of 1956.
Married twice, Parker outlived both wives and never had children. At the age of 94 he moved in with his sister, telling her he didn't want to die in a nursing home with strangers. In recent years, he still liked to drink a glass of cognac while paging through The New Yorker magazine.
He died at the age of 95 on January 10, 1999, in Titusville, Florida. His hobbies included golf, polo, and reading. He rarely stepped out without donning a French beret and knotting his ascot just so. Parker has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6821 Hollywood Boulevard
(Edited from Wikipedia & Travalanche * some sources give April 29, 1906, or July 1, 1906as birth dates)