49 Fun Facts About Ella Fitzgerald

In which city was Ella Fitzgerald born in 1917?

Newport News, Virginia, was home only briefly: her parents separated and her mother took her north to New York while she was still a small child.

Which nickname was Fitzgerald most often given?

The First Lady of Song was honoured in kind: when the Society of Singers created its top career award, it named the prize the Ella and made her its first recipient.

In which New York city did Ella Fitzgerald grow up?

Yonkers became home when her mother moved north with Joseph da Silva, a Portuguese immigrant, and Ella excelled at school there until her mother's death upended her teens.

After her mother died in 1932, the teenage Ella Fitzgerald went to live with which relative in Harlem?

An aunt, her mother's sister, took her in, but the once model pupil began skipping school; years later the same aunt raised Ella's adopted son while she toured.

At which Harlem venue did Fitzgerald make her stage debut on Amateur Night in November 1934?

The Apollo Theater's famously tough crowd booed and laughed when she walked on, then called for encores, and she left with the first prize.

What had Ella Fitzgerald planned to do at her 1934 amateur-night debut before deciding to sing instead?

Dance was the plan, but the Edwards Sisters, a dance act, closed the main show just before the amateurs, and she lost her nerve and sang instead.

Which singer did the young Fitzgerald idolise and try to sound exactly like?

Connee Boswell led the Boswell Sisters; Ella's mother brought one of her records home, and Ella copied her so closely that she won her first talent contest singing in Boswell's style.

Fitzgerald shared a two-week Broadway concert run in the 1970s with Count Basie and which singer?

Frank Sinatra shared the Uris Theater bill with her and Basie; in 1990 he sang with her one last time on the night he accepted the Society of Singers award that carries her name.

Chick Webb gave the teenage Fitzgerald a trial with his band at which university?

Yale was the test: Webb, who already had a male singer, said that if the college kids liked her, she would stay. They did, and he hired her.

Fitzgerald and Chick Webb's orchestra were most closely tied to which Harlem ballroom?

The Savoy Ballroom made Webb's orchestra its house band, and in the hall's battles of the bands the group regularly beat bigger-name visitors.

Which 1938 nursery-rhyme adaptation, which she co-wrote, made Fitzgerald a national star?

"A-Tisket, A-Tasket" was her own idea: she pressed arranger Van Alexander to build a song on the rhyme, a drop-the-handkerchief game from her childhood, then changed some of his words.

Webb died in June 1939 of what illness?

The band was renamed Ella Fitzgerald and Her Famous Orchestra, making the 22-year-old singer its leader.

Chick Webb's orchestra, with Fitzgerald as its singer, won a famous 1937 battle of the bands against whose band?

Benny Goodman, the King of Swing, brought his band uptown at the height of its fame and was beaten; two years later Webb died and the 22-year-old Ella took over as leader of the orchestra.

Whose bebop big band influenced Fitzgerald to make scat singing a major part of her repertoire?

Dizzy Gillespie took her on tour with his big band in 1946, and she said she simply tried to do with her voice what she heard the horns in the band doing.

Which 1945 scat recording did The New York Times call one of the decade's most influential vocal jazz records?

"Flying Home" was Lionel Hampton's signature tune; she remade it as a showcase for scat, and her bebop take on "Oh, Lady Be Good!" two years later sealed her name as an improviser.

Which producer became Fitzgerald's manager and created Verve Records around her?

Norman Granz's stand against segregated shows made enemies: Texas police once raided her dressing room over a backstage dice game, arrested her, then asked for her autograph.

Fitzgerald began working with her future manager after singing in which concert series he founded?

Jazz at the Philharmonic toured under a rule of no "white" or "colored" seating, and its founder cancelled bookings rather than play to a segregated house.

Which composer was the subject of Fitzgerald's first Song Book album, released in 1956?

Cole Porter came first, and she feared the idea meant her manager wanted her out of show business; she later called the album a turning point in her life.

Which lyricist was the subject of Fitzgerald's last Verve Song Book?

Johnny Mercer closed the series in 1964, eight years after it began; by then the Song Books had carried her voice far beyond the jazz audience she started with.

Which composer's Song Book album with Fitzgerald includes a four-movement musical portrait of her?

Duke Ellington and his orchestra also play on the set, the only Song Book whose composer joined her; the album won her a Grammy at the very first ceremony.

Which film star lobbied the owner of Hollywood's Mocambo nightclub to book Fitzgerald in 1955?

Marilyn Monroe, Ella recalled, phoned the owner and promised to take a front table every night if he booked her; afterwards, Ella said, she never had to play a small jazz club again.

Which crooner said that, "man, woman or child", Ella Fitzgerald was the greatest singer of all?

Bing Crosby was returning a compliment: his were among the records she grew up listening to, and she later sang as a guest on his television show.

On the live album Ella in Berlin, Fitzgerald won a Grammy for which song despite forgetting the words?

"Mack the Knife" was new to her act that night in 1960; when the words deserted her she made up fresh ones, name-checking Bobby Darin, whose version had just been a No. 1 hit.

Which songwriter said, "I never knew how good our songs were until I heard Ella Fitzgerald sing them"?

Ira Gershwin helped choose the songs for her 1959 Gershwin set and revised some of his lyrics for it; The New York Times called the five-LP collection the artistic peak of her Song Books.

Fitzgerald's last US chart single was a cover of which Smokey Robinson song?

"Get Ready" had been a Temptations hit; her 1969 cover came in a spell of singing Beatles, Bacharach and Motown songs that never suited her, and she soon returned to jazz full time.

Which label did Fitzgerald's manager found in 1973, returning her to jazz full time?

Pablo Records was her manager's first label since he sold Verve more than a decade earlier, and he built it around the artists he managed; for Ella it meant a return to straight jazz.

Fitzgerald played the singer Maggie Jackson in which 1955 jazz film?

Pete Kelly's Blues was panned by The New York Times, whose critic still singled out "the wonderful Ella Fitzgerald" for filling the screen in her few scenes.

Fitzgerald made her screen debut in 1942 singing in a comedy starring which duo?

Abbott and Costello's Ride 'Em Cowboy was her film debut, a fact The New York Times had to correct after its obituary named a 1955 picture as her first.

In a famous Memorex commercial, what did a recording of Fitzgerald's voice do?

Shattered a glass: her live note broke one, then the tape of it, played back, broke another, which set up the tagline "Is it live, or is it Memorex?"

For which fast-food chain did Fitzgerald sing and scat the slogan "We do chicken right!"?

KFC got the line from an agency it had hired to reach Black audiences, then used it across the whole chain through the 1980s, with Ella scatting it in a run of television ads.

Which vocal quartet joined Fitzgerald on the No. 1 hit "Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall"?

The Ink Spots' single with Ella sold a million, with another chart-topper, "I'm Making Believe", on its other side; the title quotes a line from Longfellow's poem "The Rainy Day".

Which trumpeter recorded three Verve studio albums with Fitzgerald, including one of Porgy and Bess?

Louis Armstrong first duetted with her on a 1946 Decca single; ten years on, Ella and Louis proved such a success that a sequel and then the opera album followed.

Which guitarist recorded four duo albums with Fitzgerald late in her career?

Joe Pass was signed by her manager to the label he had just founded, and the manager produced their duets himself; the second, Fitzgerald and Pass... Again, won her a Grammy.

Which young arranger wrote the charts for Fitzgerald's 1963 album with Count Basie's orchestra?

Quincy Jones arranged Ella and Basie!, a swinging break from her Song Books and constant touring; the pairing worked so well that she later went on the road with Basie's band.

Which famous bass player did Fitzgerald marry in December 1947?

Ray Brown met her on a bebop big band's tour; they adopted her half-sister's son, and although the marriage ended in divorce, the two went on performing together.

How did Fitzgerald's first marriage, to Benny Kornegay in 1941, end?

It was annulled once she discovered his criminal record; she had married him, perhaps in search of stability, two years after losing her mentor Chick Webb.

From 1949 to 1956 Fitzgerald lived in which Queens neighbourhood alongside Count Basie and Lena Horne?

St. Albans's Addisleigh Park enclave was built with covenants barring sales to Black buyers, yet by the late 1940s it had become a haven for Black stars of jazz and sport.

Fitzgerald sued which airline for racial discrimination after being bumped from a 1954 flight?

Pan Am ordered her party off a flight to Australia in Honolulu and left them stranded for three days; she sued, lost in the district court and won on appeal in 1956.

What did complications of diabetes cost Fitzgerald in 1993?

Both legs below the knee were amputated in 1993; seven years earlier she had defied predictions that she would never sing again by returning to the stage after heart surgery.

On the day Fitzgerald died in 1996, which Los Angeles venue's marquee read "Ella We Will Miss You"?

The Hollywood Bowl was opening the Playboy Jazz Festival only hours after her death, and the festival's host led the crowd in a moment of silence for her.

Which torch song, written for Fitzgerald to sing in a 1950s film, was cut and became another singer's first hit instead?

"Cry Me a River" was dropped from the film, and its writer's old schoolmate Julie London had the hit instead; Fitzgerald finally sang it on an album of her own in 1961.

After Fitzgerald's death, her personal collection of scores and arrangements went to which institution?

The Library of Congress received more than 10,000 pages of her scores and band parts in 1997, and has loaned the music to singers to perform rather than leaving it on the shelf.

Which Stevie Wonder hit name-checks Fitzgerald?

"Sir Duke" is Wonder's thank-you to the musicians who shaped him, written, he said, because such pioneers are too soon forgotten; its lyric salutes Count Basie and saves a line for Ella's voice.

Which French singer had a European hit in 1987 with the Fitzgerald tribute "Ella, elle l'a"?

France Gall sang it, but her husband Michel Berger wrote it, as both a tribute to Ella and a protest against racism; it reached No. 1 in Germany and Austria in 1988.

Fitzgerald's 2007 US postage stamp was part of which series?

Black Heritage: the stamp was issued in January 2007 at a ceremony at Jazz at Lincoln Center, and her son said she would have been "very pleased and a little surprised".

Fitzgerald shared which 1979 award with Aaron Copland, Henry Fonda, Martha Graham and Tennessee Williams?

Kennedy Center Honors came in the year Down Beat put her in its Hall of Fame; such awards, she once said, "didn't make me feel important, but they made me realize people loved me".

Fitzgerald reached the British singles chart with a jazz cover of which early Beatles hit?

"Can't Buy Me Love" had been out for under two months when her own swinging version followed it into the British chart, where it peaked at No. 34.

In 1980 Fitzgerald sang a medley of standards in a duet with which pop singer on a television special?

Karen Carpenter's special, Music, Music, Music, also brought Ella together again with Nelson Riddle, arranger of her celebrated 1959 Song Book, whose orchestra played on the show.

Which 1967 Grammy made Fitzgerald its first female winner?

Lifetime Achievement proved no farewell: she went on winning competitive Grammys for more than two decades, the last for her album All That Jazz.