Songwriter ("Dearest One"), actor, composer, singer, comedian and guitarist who, after high school, appeared in night clubs, hotels, films, and on television. He made many records, including his own compositions. He joined ASCAP in 1959, and his popular-song compositions also include "The Gal Looks Good", "Nobody Knows Why", "I Was There", "A Man's Gotta Eat" and "When, Oh When".


Some sources erroneously credit him as Billie Holiday's jilting lover in the 1936 Duke Ellington one-reeler, "Symphony In Black", a role actually portrayed by Earl 'Snake Hips' Tucker. The song Billie sang was "Saddest Tale". He appeared as a guest musician on the local music program, "The Spade Cooley Show" (1958). Cooley, a white Western swing musician, hosted the show for a local Los Angeles TV station. Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives." Volume Two, 1986-1990, pages 215-216. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1999. He and his wife Helen had one child, a daughter named Donna (born 1949).