- published: 28 Apr 2014
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Alton Glenn Miller (March 1, 1904 – missing in action December 15, 1944) was an American jazz musician (trombone), arranger, composer, and bandleader in the swing era. He was one of the best-selling recording artists from 1939 to 1943, leading one of the best known Big Bands. Miller's notable recordings include "In the Mood", "Moonlight Serenade", "Pennsylvania 6-5000", "Chattanooga Choo Choo", "A String of Pearls", "At Last", "(I've Got a Gal In) Kalamazoo", "American Patrol", "Tuxedo Junction", and "Little Brown Jug". While he was traveling to entertain U.S. troops in France during World War II, Glenn Miller disappeared in bad weather over the English Channel. The Glenn Miller Orchestra was re-formed after the war and continues to record and perform to this day.
Miller was born on a farm in Clarinda, Iowa, to Lewis Elmer Miller and Mattie Lou (née Cavender). He went to grade school in North Platte in western Nebraska. In 1915, Miller's family moved to Grant City, Missouri. Around this time, Miller had finally made enough money from milking cows to buy his first trombone and played in the town orchestra. In 1918, the Miller family moved again, this time to Fort Morgan, Colorado, where Miller went to high school. During his senior year, Miller became very interested in a new style of music called "dance band music." He was so taken with it that he formed his own band with some classmates. By the time Miller graduated from high school in 1921, he had decided he wanted to become a professional musician.
Actors: Tito Vuolo (actor), Melville Shavelson (writer), Blanche Sweet (actress), Mike Mahoney (actor), Bob Hope (actor), Tuesday Weld (actress), Danny Kaye (actor), Bill Baldwin (actor), Eric Alden (actor), Harry Guardino (actor), Louis Armstrong (actor), Len Hendry (actor), Ned Glass (actor), Edith Head (costume designer), Leith Stevens (composer),
Plot: Loring "Red" Nichols is a cornet-playing country boy who goes to New York in the 1920s full of musical ambition and principles. He gets a job playing in Wil Paradise's band, but quits to pursue his dream of playing Dixieland jazz. He forms the "Five Pennies" which features his wife, Bobbie, as vocalist. At the peak of his fame, Red and Bobbie's daughter, Dorothy, develops polio. Red quits the music business to move to Los Angeles where the climate is better for Dorothy. As Dorothy becomes a young teen, she learns of her father's musical past, and he is persuaded to open a small nightclub which is failing until some noted names from his past come to help out.
Keywords: african-american, band, birthday-party, boarding-school, clowning, cornet, doctor, double-date, drunkenness, fameActors: Sig Ruman (actor), Thurl Ravenscroft (actor), Harry Morgan (actor), Damian O'Flynn (actor), Barton MacLane (actor), Irving Bacon (actor), Steve Pendleton (actor), Hal K. Dawson (actor), William Challee (actor), Charles Drake (actor), James Bell (actor), Louis Armstrong (actor), Dayton Lummis (actor), Dick Ryan (actor), Harry Harvey (actor),
Plot: The biography of the Bandleader Glenn Miller from his beginnings to his death over the English Channel in December 1944, with a lot of his arangements, partly in an authentic cast.
Keywords: airplane-crash, band, bandleader, big-band, campus, car-trouble, character-name-in-title, christmas, dancer, dancing