Felix Knight

William Felix Knight, known professionally as Felix Knight, was an American tenor, actor, and vocal teacher born on November 1, 1908, in Macon, Georgia, and died on June 18, 1998. He is best remembered for portraying Tom-Tom, the Piper's Son, the romantic lead opposite Little Bo Peep, in the 1934 Laurel and Hardy holiday musical film Babes in Toyland, based on Victor Herbert's 1903 operetta. His Broadway appearances spanned 1940 to 1942 and included It Happens on Ice, The Merry Widow Burlesque, and Once Over Lightly.

Knight was the son of a cotton farmer who died in a hunting accident when Knight was five years old. The family relocated to Pensacola, Florida seven years later, where he took up the guitar and, by his mid-teens, was performing at dances and local nightspots. By 1925 he was featured on a local radio station, and a movie company manager working on location encouraged him to try his luck in California.

In California, Knight studied voice and supported himself through local singing engagements and church work, eventually receiving financial assistance from the Harkness Scholarship Foundation toward his vocal lessons. By 1929 he was performing on a Columbia network station in Santa Barbara and had secured a national program, WCC Presents Felix Knight. He entered the Atwater Kent Foundation Scholarship Auditions of the Air and advanced to Manhattan, where he placed second. After returning to California, he sang in Giuseppe Verdi's La traviata alongside Lily Pons at the Hollywood Bowl, then performed in Hector Berlioz's La damnation de Faust with the San Francisco opera company. Back in Hollywood, he appeared on the CBS program Shell Mountain House with Raymond Paige and his Orchestra and performed opera vignettes at the Harold Lloyd co-founded Beverly Hills Little Theatre for Professionals.

Knight made his screen debut in 1934 in RKO Pictures' Down to Their Last Yacht, playing a South Seas native who sings "Malakamokolu," followed by a gypsy role in Caravan, starring Charles Boyer and Loretta Young. His most prominent film role came that same year in Babes in Toyland, in which he played Tom-Tom and performed several musical numbers, including "A Castle in Spain." Although placed under contract with MGM, Knight was loaned out rather than cast directly in studio productions. At Warner Bros. he appeared in two musical shorts: Springtime in Holland (1935), in which he played a Dutch milk seller and sang "The Girl on the Little Blue Plate" and "Beside the Zuider Zee," and Carnival Day (1936), in which he played a jockey who romances a flower girl played by Joan Barclay and sang "The Rose in Her Hair" and "Steppin' Along." He reunited with Laurel and Hardy in the Hal Roach production The Bohemian Girl, playing a gypsy singer who performs a number from the 1843 Michael William Balfe and Alfred Bunn opera. A screen test for Roach also placed him briefly in Pick a Star as a nightclub singer. Despite studying acting with Irving Pichel, no further significant film opportunities followed, including a potential film series in Australia that failed to materialize.

Knight relocated to New York City in 1937. He made radio recordings for Thesaurus Transcriptions with Nathaniel Shilkret and his Orchestra, and the following year recorded nine songs for Victor Records with Leo Reisman's orchestra. His radio work during this period included the Schaefer All-Star Parade on NBC from 1938 to 1940, the NBC Blue Network's Music Appreciation Hour in 1938, and The Magic Key during the 1938–39 season. He also hosted a weekly program on WEAF every Thursday. In 1938 he was a finalist on NBC's Metropolitan Opera Auditions of the Air, losing to John Carter by a single vote. In 1939 he made his concert recital debut at Town Hall, performing selections from Johannes Brahms, Francesco Cavalli, Alessandro Stradella, and Richard Strauss.

Knight made his Broadway debut in October 1940 as the featured singer in It Happens on Ice. In 1942 he sang the role of Camile de Jolidon in Franz Lehár's The Merry Widow at Carnegie Hall. That same year he played Almaviva in Once Over Lightly alongside Igor Gorin and Grace Panvini, a production based on Gioachino Rossini's The Barber of Seville. Also in 1940, Knight recorded again for Victor Records and was heard on radio programs including The Ford Sunday Evening Hour, Music Hall of the Air, and the game program So You Think You Know Music. He served in World War II and was present at Guadalcanal.

In 1946 Knight signed with Decca Records, recording operettas and popular songs, and served as a vocalist with the Guy Lombardo and Russ Morgan orchestras. That year he also joined the Metropolitan Opera, making his debut as Count Almaviva in Il barbiere di Siviglia, the same role he had performed in the English-language Broadway production Once Over Lightly four years earlier. He remained at the Met until 1950 while continuing to appear on radio in series including The Pet Milk Show and The American Album of Familiar Music. His television work included appearances on NBC Television Concert Hall in 1948, a performance of Rodolfo's aria from La bohème on Your Show of Shows in April 1950, and Christmas hymns on a holiday edition of Juvenile Jury in December 1951. In the early 1950s he hosted his own television series, Felix Knight Sings, which aired every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. He also recorded the tenor roles in excerpts from Victor Herbert operettas with soprano Doretta Morrow for RCA Victor.

Following his departure from the Met, Knight performed for two months at the Capitol Theatre, then spent several years giving concerts with ensembles including the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, performing in summer stock, and working supper clubs and nightclubs. In 1960 he and Mimi Benzell recorded an album of music from Can-Can and Kiss Me, Kate for Design Records. He made occasional television appearances on late-night programs such as The Jack Paar Show in September 1961. Toward the end of the 1960s, Knight transitioned into a career as a vocal teacher, instructing both Broadway and opera singers for the remainder of his life. He was a member of the Founding Tent of the Sons of the Desert, the international Laurel and Hardy society, and attended several of their conventions.

On the set of Babes in Toyland, Knight met fellow cast member Alice Moore, who played the Queen of Hearts. The two eloped to Yuma, Arizona, marrying on October 17, 1935, and divorced on March 14, 1939. In 1940 Knight married Ethel Blume, a radio actress whose credits included The Adventures of Helen, The Aldrich Family, Easy Aces, John's Other Wife, and Joyce Jordan, M.D.