Author Description

The story of Tommy Dix is the story of a remarkable singer and a remarkable man. Overcoming a chronic illness, and rising above his family's initial poverty, Tommy used his talents to become one of America's most popular entertainers during the 1940s. He amazed a nationwide audience for the first time at the age of thirteen when he appeared on "Major Bowes' Original Amateur Hour", the country's most popular radio show in the mid-1930s. Tommy's unusually rich, deep baritone singing voice lit up the switchboard and compelled Major Bowes to immediately invite him back for an encore. When Tommy was sixteen he appeared before the mother of President Roosevelt and a large audience at New York City's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel singing his own original composition "The March of Dimes" and then leading everyone in a rendition of "Happy Birthday." The following year he appeared on Broadway where he made the song "Buckle Down, Winsocki" a nationwide pop favorite, and by the time he was nineteen he was starring opposite Lucille Ball in the hit M-G-M musical "Best Foot Forward." For the next decade Tommy performed throughout the United States entertaining young and old alike with his amazing singing voice. Numerous B&W and color photographs and illustrations. The expanded Second Edition has 40 additional pages of new information and photographs.