Biography

Teresa Brewer

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Overview

Born
May 7, 1931 · Toledo, Ohio, USA
Died
October 17, 2007 · New Rochelle, New York, USA (progressive supranuclear palsy)
Birth name
Theresa Veronica Breuer
Nickname
- Tessie
Height
5′ (1.52 m)

Mini bio

Teresa Brewer made her debut on "The Major Bowes Amateur Hour" radio program in 1936 and toured with the show until 1943. She made her first recording in 1949 and her first big record was "Music! Music! Music!" It debuted on 4 February 1950 and was Number 1 on the Top 10 charts for four weeks.
- IMDb mini biography by: J.E. McKillop <jack-mckillop@worldnet.att.net>
Singer, songwriter ("Down the Holiday Trail"), and author. Educated at Waite High School and later a singer in theaters and night clubs and on radio and television. She made many records and joined ASCAP in 1956. Her other song compositions include "I Love Mickey", "Imp", "There's Nothing as Lonesome as Saturday Night", and "Hush-a-bye, Wink-a-bye Do".
- IMDb mini biography by: Anonymous
Born May 7, 1931 in Toledo, Ohio, she had four younger brothers. She first became involved with public performing at age two on Uncle August's local radio show. At age five she started appearing on Major Bowes New York Amateur Hour radio show and also touring the eastern US with one of his troupes until age twelve. During this period she was also performing on local radio in Toledo. Moving to New York in early 1948 with her aunt she performed in night clubs. In November 1949 she married Bill Monahan of New York at age 18. That year she started recording for London Records in New York, the first single being When The Train Came In. It was her third solo single that became her first big hit - Music! Music! Music! in early 1950. The Ed Sullivan Show (Toast Of The Town) and others started featuring her regularly, and she filmed six television musical shorts for the Snader telescription series. 1953 brought her only movie role in the western musical Those Redheads From Seattle, on the basis of being voted America's most popular female singer. There were many big hits throughout the 1950s on the Coral label, until 1961 when music changed. She kept recording on the Philips label and others, and performing in major night clubs from Atlantic City to Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe. In 1972 she married a second time to Bob Thiele, an established New York record producer, who kept her on wax until the 1990s when he died. They produced jazz, rock, and general pop music. She died in 2007 of a neurological illness. She has left a legacy of many video and audio recordings.
- IMDb mini biography by: GeoSlv

Family

Spouses

Trivia

Four daughters: Kathleen (born in 1950), Susan (born in 1952), Megan Colleen (born in November 1954), and Michelle (born in 1958).
Dropped out of high school at age 16 a couple months before graduating and moved to New York for singing engagements, altering her given name to "Teresa Brewer". Because she had skipped a grade she would have graduated in June 1948 at age 17. But because she had won a contest and was swept into singing engagements in New York earlier that year, she did not return to finish the school year. She even turned down an offer of an honorary diploma, disliking school that much.
She recorded Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World", which was written by her second husband Bob Thiele. Thiele also produced a few of her earlier hits.
She moved away from performing in the 1960s as rock 'n' roll took over the pop scene and instead concentrated on raising a family of four. She returned to singing in a jazz-swing mode a decade later after marrying her second husband, jazz producer Bob Thiele, and worked with such icons as Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie.
She dyed her brown hair and made her film debut as one of Those Redheads from Seattle (1953) starring Rhonda Fleming, but turned down a long-term contract offer by Paramount in order to maintain her singing career and remain with her family, both established on the East Coast. Paramount was ready to promote her as a "starlet", a term which irritated her. Later in an interview with the Teresa Brewer Center she said "I could kick myself" for not doing more movies.