Bobby Breen (November 4, 1927 – September 19, 2016), was a Canadian-born American actor and singer. He was a popular male child singer during the 1930s and reached major popularity with film and radio appearances.
He was born Isadore Borsuk in Montreal, the son of Hyman and Rebecca, poor Jewish immigrants from Ukraine. Soon after, the family, including his three older sisters, moved to Toronto. His sister Susan, a music student, noticed the boy’s singing talent as early as the age of three. After lessons with her music teacher, he began to sing in public, winning prizes at competitions. By the age of six, little Isadore, who had become Bobby Breen, was singing in shows around the US. In New York, he enrolled in the Professional Children’s School and got the part of Bob Hope’s newsboy son in the Broadway musical Say When (1934).
Breen went to Hollywood in 1935, where he received singing lessons from a vocal coach. Film producer Sol Lesser, who had discovered Jackie Coogan, signed Breen to RKO Radio Pictures. Around this time, he became a regular performer on Eddie Cantor's weekly radio show in 1936, where his talents as a boy soprano were appreciated by the listeners. His debut saw him being top-billed with Henry Armetta as his co-star. He also signed a contract with Decca Records and had moderate success with a series of 78 rpm records in the late 1930s. The title song from Let's Sing Again (Decca 798) would become a national hit, charting at #14 in the summer of 1936.
Satisfied with his debut for the studio, RKO signed a deal with him for three additional movies. He was cast in another musical later the same year called Rainbow on the River, co-starring May Robson and Alan Mowbray. He sang Ave Maria and the film's title song Rainbow on the River. Kurt Neumann, who had directed Breen in his first two pictures, worked with him for the last time in Make a Wish in 1937. His co-star was Basil Rathbone. In a 1938 article, he was referred to as one of the rare cases of child actors succeeding in an adult-dominated industry.
Breen enlisted in the infantry in the U.S. Army during World War II. He and fellow Hollywood actor Mickey Rooney were soon assigned to entertain the troops, despite him having retired from show business. Breen was hospitalized in France in 1945 towards the end of the war. For his war efforts, he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal. After his discharge from the U.S. Army, in 1946, he initially struggled to find work as he returned to show business. He did some theatre work as well as some radio appearances in New York during this period. Because of his voice having changed since becoming an adult, he took singing lessons to reinvent himself by adapting to a new tenor singing style.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, he worked as a singer in nightclubs and as a musical performer in stock theatre, later serving as a guest pianist for the NBC Symphony Orchestra on radio, and hosting a local TV show in New York. He also recorded briefly for the Motown label, singing on two singles and produced an unreleased album in 1964 called Better Late Than Never. Berry Gordy had hoped for Breen to become his first white contracted artist, but ultimately changed his mind because the singer did not suit the type of music Motown produced. But he was not forgotten. Breen’s face appeared on the cover of the 1967 Beatles album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band between George Harrison and Marlene Dietrich. “How they chose me, or where they got the picture, I have no idea,” Breen said.
Since the 1970s, he and his wife Audrey had been working in Florida as entrepreneurs, booking agents and producers arranging musical shows performed by various entertainers at smaller, affordable venues. In later years, it has focused on hiring aged stars of the past, including Debbie Reynolds, Mickey Rooney and Ann Blyth. He lived with his family in Tamarac, Florida, and worked as the owner/operator of Bobby Breen Enterprises, a local talent agency. In 1999 he underwent bypass surgery due to blocked arteries. Starting in 2002, he made occasional concert appearances.
He died of natural causes in Pompano Beach, Florida, on September 19, 2016, three days following the death of his wife.
(Edited from Wikipedia & the Guardian)