Featured here on the cover ofhe March 11, 1933 issue of Radio Guide is Annette Hanshaw, who was also featured in the magazine’s June 16, 1934, issue, from which the photograph above is taken.
Throughout her carreer, she gave her birthdate as 1910, although it was revealed after her death that she had actually been born in 1901. The 1934 article notes that she first sang professionally at the age of sixteen, but she would have been about 25 at the time. Her father owned an inn at Mt. Kisco, New York, and she started a music shop in the same town. One day, Waldemar Rose, a Pathé record executive, visited the store, heard her voice, and advised her to audition. She was immediately offered a job, and between 1926 and 1934, she sold over four million records.
One of her most ardent fans was Edward VIII, the then Pricne of Wales, who had a standing order for all of her records. She recorded under a number of names, including her own. Her other names included Gay Ellis, Dot Dare, and Patsy Young, Ethel Bingham, Marion Lee, Janet Shaw, and Lelia Sandford. Her first records were released under the Pathé and Perfect labels, as well as other labels. Her radio career included a starring role in the NBC radio program Maxwell House Show Boat, and she had one film appearance, in a 1933 Paramount short “Captain Henry’s Radio Show”, a “picturization” of the radio program, which you can view here:
In 1934, readers of Radio Stars magazine voted her the best female popular singer, the same year that Bing Crosby was named the best male popular singer.
She retired from show business in the late 1930’s. She later revealed that she disliked the business intensely, and admitted “I loathed it, and I’m ashamed to say I just did it for the money.”
She died in New York in 1985, and her New York Times obituary gave her age as 74. She was actually, however, 83, as her actual birth date was not revealed until after her death.
Scores of her recordings are available online. Here is her 1930 recording of “Happy Days are Here Again”:
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