Jimmy Bryant (singer)

For the guitarist, see Jimmy Bryant.

Jimmy Bryant (born James Howard Bryant, June 2, 1929) is a singer, arranger and composer. He is most well known for providing the singing voice of Tony (played onscreen by Richard Beymer) in the 1961 film musical West Side Story.[1] While he received no screen credit, he states that Beymer was "a nice guy, and every time he did an interview he would mention my name."[1] He also sang for James Fox in the 1967 film musical Thoroughly Modern Millie,[1] and sang in "The Telephone Hour" number in Bye Bye Birdie. He also sang in the group that performed the theme song of the TV series Batman.[1]

Bryant was born in Birmingham, Alabama and grew up in Tarrant, Alabama. He attended Birmingham Southern College and the Birmingham Conservatory of Music before receiving a Scholarship in Composition at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. He then moved to New York City in 1953 where he worked as a background singer.[1] He later moved to Los Angeles and played bass[1] in the house band at Puccini's, a Beverly Hills restaurant owned by Frank Sinatra.[1]

His work as an orchestrator includes the movies Not with My Wife, You Don't!, Penelope and the TV series Lost in Space.[1] He also composed music heard at Walt Disney World and Tokyo Disneyland.[1]

Jimmy Bryant was selected over every singer in the world to be the "ghost voice" for Richard Beymer. The producers flew people from all over the world to audition, putting them up at the Beverly Hills Hotel. When the producers decided to hire Jimmy, he was offered a contract at scale, which he took because he needed the money, desperately, at the time. Jimmy Bryant received residuals only for television replays. Inquiring about a Record Album residual, Saul Chaplin told Jimmy he had to deal directly with Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim since they kept those rights. Marni Nixon, a friend of Bernstein, flew her agent to New York to negotiate her deal. Marni Nixon made $18,000 in her first check. Jimmy Bryant, so new in the business, had no such luck negotiating sound track record album residuals.

Bryant also scored the music for numerous radio and television commercials for clients such as Lone Star beer, Tecate, Chrysler Imports, and Toyota Motor Cars.

He was a friend of Jimmy Bryant, the famous guitar player, with whom he is often confused.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 "Jimmy Bryant". Alabama Music Hall of Fame. Retrieved 2008-04-11. Citing Carlton, Bob (2002-07-12). "State native was 'ghost singer' in 'West Side Story'". Birmingham News.

External links

Jimmy Bryant at the Internet Movie Database


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/12/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.