Blossom Seeley

Blossom Seeley, born Minnie Guyer (or Guiger) on July 16, 1886, in New Haven, Connecticut, was an American singer, dancer, and actress whose career spanned Broadway, vaudeville, recording, film, and television. Her father, William F. Guyer (or Guiger), was a photographer, and her mother was Mertle F. "Minnie" Winson; her parents had married in 1880. As a teenager, Seeley performed specialty acts at Sid Grauman's venue in San Francisco, California, where she was billed as "The Little Blossom." She would later cite San Francisco as her place of origin.

Seeley established herself as a top vaudeville headliner and earned the nickname "Queen of Syncopation" for her role in bringing jazz and ragtime into the mainstream of American music. In 1910, she introduced Shelton Brooks's "Some of These Days" in vaudeville, a year before Sophie Tucker recorded it in 1911. Her signature song was "Toddling the Todalo," and her other major recording hits included "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans," "Rose Room," "Lazy," and "Yes Sir, That's My Baby," released as part of a series of solo records during the 1920s.

Her Broadway career ran from 1911 to 1928 and encompassed a range of productions. These included the musical The Charity Girl, the musical Stop! Look! Listen!, the revue Ned Wayburn's Town Topics, the play Made in America, and the 1923 revue The Greenwich Village Follies, among other productions.

Seeley formed one half of the celebrated vaudeville partnership of Blossom Seeley and Benny Fields. When the duo performed at the Palace Theatre during its Golden Era, they consistently held the number-one spot on the bill, even when sharing the program with Jack Benny, George Burns, Gracie Allen, and George Jessel. In 1927, Seeley and Fields filmed one of the earliest Vitaphone sound shorts, Blossom Seeley and Benny Fields, in which Seeley introduced the song "Hello, Bluebird," a number later associated with Judy Garland in the film I Could Go On Singing. In 1933, Seeley appeared in two pre-Code films: Blood Money, alongside George Bancroft, Judith Anderson, and Frances Dee, and Broadway Through a Keyhole, with Russ Columbo and Texas Guinan. The story of Seeley and Fields's marriage and professional partnership was adapted into the 1952 film Somebody Loves Me, with Betty Hutton and Ralph Meeker in the lead roles. The film revived their public profile and led to a series of television appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show.

During the 1950s, Seeley and Fields recorded three LP albums for the Decca, MGM, and Mercury labels. Following Fields's death in 1959, Seeley continued to perform as a solo artist. In 1961, she was among the performers featured on the CBS special Chicago and All That Jazz and contributed vocals to the accompanying Verve album, which marked her first recording in stereo. She made two appearances on The Garry Moore Show and, in 1966, performed her rendition of "My Kind of Town" on The Ed Sullivan Show. Her final television appearance took place on The Mike Douglas Show, which Douglas taped at the nursing home where she was then residing.

Seeley was married three times. Her first husband was Joe Kane, born Joseph Cahen. Her second husband was Baseball Hall of Famer Rube Marquard, born Richard William Marquard, who pitched for the New York Giants; their relationship was later chronicled in Noel Hynd's 1996 book Marquard and Seeley. With Marquard, Seeley had one child, Richard William Marquard II. Her third husband was her longtime professional partner, Benny Fields. Seeley died on April 17, 1974, at the DeWitt Nursing Home in New York City, at the age of 87.