A great while ago the world began

[sovay]

So it turns out I have a surprising number of songs by actors on my computer. Specifically, actors who are not also widely or significantly known as singers—I recognize this is a subjective as well as fuzzy criterion, and I've obviously waived it a couple of times in this post, but on the whole I have tried to exclude parallel careers as musicians or steady work in musicals or operas, because otherwise I'll be here all evening. So no Theodore Bikel, no Marlene Dietrich, no David Hemmings; no Yul Brynner or Glynis Johns or Jerry Orbach; Angela Lansbury is right out. I glossed the prospective post to spatch as "songs by people you didn't even know could sing, and some of them can't, but that's not the point here." Have a thoroughly random selection.

Jennifer Beals, "One Girl in a Million" (Blood & Concrete: A Love Story, 1991)

Curt Bois, "Guck doch nicht immer nach dem Tangogeiger hin" (1930)

David Collings, "Denzil's Song (Midnight Is a Place)" (Midnight Is a Place, 1977)

Hans Conried, "Dressing Song" (The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, 1953)

Tom Courtenay, "Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter" (The Lads, 1963)

Bernard Cribbins, "Right Said Fred" (7", 1962)

Shelley Duvall, "He Needs Me (Demo)" (Popeye, 1979)

Chiwetel Ejiofor, "These Boots Are Made for Walking (Medley)" (Kinky Boots, 2006)

John Goodman, "People Like Us" (True Stories, 1986)

Ed Harris, "You'll Never Leave My Heart" (Appaloosa, 2008)

Walter Huston, "September Song" (Knickerbocker Holiday, 1938)

Samuel L. Jackson, "Black Snake Moan" (Black Snake Moan, 2007)

Scarlett Johansson, "Yesterday Is Here" (Anywhere I Lay My Head, 2008)

Ben Kingsley, "The Wind and the Rain" (Twelfth Night, 1996)

Yaphet Kotto, "Have You Ever Seen the Blues" (7", 1967)

Hardy Krüger, "Blind Date (I'm a Lonely Man)" (Blind Date, 1959)

Elsa Lanchester, "I'm Glad to See Your Back" (Songs for a Shuttered Parlor, 1958)

Jessica Lange, "Life on Mars?" (American Horror Story: Freak Show, 2014)

Peter Lorre & Nora Gregor, "Ja, die Polizei" (Was Frauen träumen, 1933)

Patrick Macnee & Honor Blackman, "Kinky Boots" (7", 1964)

Robert Mitchum, "Walker's Woods" (That Man Robert Mitchum Sings, 1967)

Anthony Perkins, "Never Will I Marry" (Greenwillow, 1960)

Alan Rickman & Lindsay Duncan, "If Love Were All/Someday I'll Find You" (Private Lives, 2002)

Jason Robards & Norman Wisdom, "Perfect Gentleman" (The Night They Raided Minsky's, 1968)

George Sanders, "Some Enchanted Evening" (audition record, 1949)

Lea Thompson & Cherry Bomb, "Howard the Duck" (Howard the Duck, 1986)

Edward Woodward, "Soldiers of the Queen" (Breaker Morant, 1980; incomplete but essential)

All right, plus honorable mentions for musical theater:

Shelley Berman, "Right Girls" (A Family Affair, 1962)

Melvyn Douglas & Jack MacGowran, "Daarlin' Man" (Juno, 1959)

Barry Humphries, Sonia Frasier & Paul Whitsun-Jones, "That's Your Funeral" (Oliver!, 1960)

Dwayne Johnson, "You're Welcome" (Moana, 2016)

Roddy McDowall, "The Seven Deadly Virtues" (Camelot, 1960)

Roger Rees, "Love Who You Love" (A Man of No Importance, 2002)

We are off to the Brattle for the Tom Hanks double feature of A League of Their Own (1992) and That Thing You Do! (1996). At least the second of which involves singing, so I may return with more names. Anyone else want to volunteer favorites in the meantime?

Comments

[sovay]

and RDJ recorded a whole album of jazz which I enjoy, but my favorite recording of his is his duet with Sting at Sting's birthday concert

Thank you! I am somehow not surprised he can sing, but it had never occurred to me and I'd certainly never heard him. That's great.