Tony Martin

Tony was at a Friar's Club Roast for Lucille Ball/Desi Arnaz in November, 1958, when Harry Parke, having just completed his comedy routine and returning to his seat, collapsed into Milton Berle's lap. Berle, hoping to divert the audience from Harry's distress, urged Tony to sing something. His unfortunate song choice was "There's No Tomorrow." Parke died of a heart attack.

Classic pop singer and occasional actor (Hit the Deck (1955), Here Come the Girls (1953), Casbah (1948)) whose career peaked in the 1950s. His biggest hit was "There's No Tomorrow" (RCA Victor, 1950), which was adapted from the traditional Neapolitan ballad "O Solo Mio" (Elvis Presley later had one of the biggest hits of his career by adapting the same song as "It's Now or Never"). Happily married for sixty years to actress/dancer Cyd Charisse.

In 1954, on "The Colgate Comedy Hour" hosted by Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, he appeared with singer/comedian Joe E. Lewis, who was later portrayed by Frank Sinatra in the film bio, The Joker Is Wild (1957). When the show's announcer first introduced "Martin and Lewis", that evening, Tony and Joe E. came on stage, instead.

Son Tony Martin Jr. (born on August 28, 1950) died in April 2011, and was survived by Liv Lindeland-Martin, his wife of almost 30 years, father Tony Martin, Sr. and half-brother Nico Charisse.

After their divorce, he married Cyd Charisse in 1948 - a marriage which lasted sixty years.

He lived longer than both of his wives. His first wife, Alice Faye who he was divorced from in 1941, died in 1998, and his second wife, Cyd Charisse, who he remained married to until her death in 2008, while he died in 2012, age 98.

His first hit record was "Now it Can Be Told" (1938), a song by Irving Berlin from the film Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938). It was sung on-screen by his then-wife Alice Faye.

in 1937, Martin married Alice Faye.

Martin starred in hit movies such as Follow the Fleet (1936), The Farmer in the Dell (1936), Pigskin Parade (1936), The Holy Terror (1937), Ali Baba Goes to Town (1937), The Big Store (1941), Till The Clouds Roll By (1946), Casbah (1948), Clash by Night (1952), where he is heard on the soundtrack singing "I Hear A Rhapsody", and Hit the Deck (1955). His numerous signature standard hits include "Kiss Of Fire", "I Get Ideas", "Some Day", "Fools Rush In" and "There's No Tomorrow", for which he is possibly best remembered.

His parents wanted him to be a lawyer. He briefly attended St. Mary's, a Christian Brothers college, CA. He says he left college in 1931 when "one of the brothers told me I was flunking everything and should stick to music.".

Born Alvin Morris, the son of immigrants from Poland, Tony Martin received a soprano saxophone on his tenth birthday. In his grammar school glee club, he became an instrumentalist and soprano pop singer. When in high school, he then formed his first band called "The Red Peppers", eventually joining a local orchestra leader, Tom Gerun, as a reed instrument specialist, sitting along with a future band leader, Woody Herman. In the mid-1930s, Martin left Gerun to go to Hollywood, where he would go under his stage name, "Tony Martin".