Kenneth Lee Spencer

Kenneth Spencer (25 April 1913 – 25 February 1964), was an American operatic singer and actor. Spencer starred in a few Broadway musicals and musical films in the United States during the 1940s. Frustrated with the racial prejudice he experienced in the United States as a black man, Spencer moved to West Germany in 1950, where he had a successful singing career. He also appeared in a number of German films. His career was cut short when he died in the crash of Eastern Air Lines Flight 304.

Life Spencer was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of a steel worker. He took private vocal lessons while working as a gardener, and eventually caught the attention of the tenor Roland Hayes who helped him to get a scholarship at the Eastman School of Music. After graduating in 1938, Spencer tried to get a performing career going but met many obstacles due to racial prejudice in the United States.

In 1938 he sang in the Federal Music Project NBC Blue radio opera Gettysburg, first from El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles, then at the Hollywood Bowl. In 1940 he was understudy for Paul Robeson in the short lived Broadway musical John Henry. This was followed by his professional recital debut in 1941 at New York City's Town Hall.

During the early 1940s Spencer made his first major successes in California as a concert artist at the Hollywood Bowl and as a radio performer. This led to his being cast in significant parts in two MGM films in 1943, the musical film Cabin in the Sky where he shared the screen with Ethel Waters, Lena Horne, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, and Louis Armstrong, and the war movie Bataan. Spencer also sang offscreen the commenting ballad in A Walk in the Sun (1945). He returned to Broadway to portray Joe in the critically acclaimed 1946 revival of Kern and Hammerstein's Show Boat, in which he sang Ol' Man River. The revival was highly successful, running almost exactly a year, rather than just a studio cast recording (there had been a British cast album in 1928). (The Show Boat 1946 revival cast recording has two versions of "Ol' Man River" - one sung by Spencer (#4), the other by Paul Robeson (#13).) The plane crashed into Lake Pontchartrain after leaving the New Orleans International Airport on 25 February 1964.

Filmography

Year Title Role Notes1943 Cabin in the Sky The General / Rev. Green 1943 Bataan Wesley Epps 1951 Les Joyeux Pèlerins Kenneth 1952 Dancing Stars Singer 1954 Ten on Every Finger Okay 1956 My Brother Joshua Josua Washington Stone 1957 Greetings and Kisses from Tegernsee Jimmy 1958 Meine schöne Mama Jimmy 1959 A Thousand Stars Aglitter Sänger 1961 Our House in Cameroon Bismarck (final film role)