Love for Lorenzo Fuller

Thanks friend Henry Bial for putting me wise to the existence of Lorenzo Fuller (1919-2011). Henry’s a University of Kansas prof; Fuller was a native Kansan and a KU alum, and they are rightly proud of the association.

It used to be widely given out that Nat King Cole was the first black American to host a a network tv show (in 1956), but I’ve come across a half dozen who came before him, and the first of the first was Fuller, who came nearly a decade earlier. His show Musical Miniatures launched on NBC in 1947.

Fuller was a child prodigy who started out with his father’s touring outfit The Fuller Concert Company. By the time he was eight he was playing the harp on J.R. Brinkley’s Kansas radio station KRKB. He was only 15 when he began studying opera and classical music at KU, mastering several instruments and several languages in the bargain. He also had his own show on KFKU radio. He was the first singer of color to perform with the school orchestra; 2,000 people turned out to witness his senior performance.

After graduation, Fuller went to New York and continued his studies at Julliard. From here he enjoyed a busy stretched on Broadway, appearing in the original productions of St. Louis Woman (1946), Finian’s Rainbow (1947), and Kiss Me, Kate (1948), in which he played Paul and sang “Too Darn Hot”. On television, in addition to his own show, he also appeared on Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts, and The Jerry Lester Show. He created original music for the 1948 Broadway show A Temporary Island. In 1950 he made history yet again by-costarring on the WPIX radio show Van and the Genie with the white actress Rosamond Vance Kaufman. That had never happened before. 1952-1955 he worked as musical arranger on an international touring revival of Porgy and Bess. In 1953 he choreographed Anna Russell’s Little Show on Broadway.

While he emerged for the occasional gig after this, he worked mostly as a high end vocal coach. After 1990 he was for all intents and purposes retired. Few around him knew of his significance to history. Few know about him now. Keep him in mind!

For more on show business history,consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, and please stay tuned for my upcomingElectric Vaudeville: A Century of Radio and TV Variety.