Early Life
William was born to Michael A. Frawley and Mary E. Brady in Burlington, Iowa. As a young boy, Bill (as he was commonly called) attended Roman Catholic school and sang with the St. Paul's Church choir. As he got older, he loved playing bit roles in local theater productions, as well as performing in amateur shows. However, his mother, a religious woman, discouraged the idea.
William did two years of office work at Union Pacific Railroad in Omaha, Nebraska. He later relocated to Chicago and found a job as a court reporter. Soon thereafter, against his mother's wishes, Frawley obtained a singing part in the musical comedy The Flirting Princess. To appease his mother, Bill relocated to St. Louis, Missouri, to work for another railroad company.
Unhappy with his railroad job, Frawley longed to be an actor. He finally decided he couldn't resist and formed a vaudeville act with his younger brother, Paul. Six months later, Frawley's mother told Paul to return to Iowa. It was during this period that William Frawley wrote a script titled, Fun in a Vaudeville Agency. He earned more than five hundred dollars for his efforts. After this, he decided to relocate to the West, settling in Denver, Colorado. Frawley was hired as a singer at a café and teamed with pianist Franz Rath. The two men relocated to San Francisco with their act, "A Man, a Piano, and a Nut." During his vaudeville career, Frawley introduced and helped popularize the songs, "My Mammy," "My Melancholy Baby" and "Carolina in the Morning." In 1958, he recorded many of his old stage songs on the LP, Bill Frawley Sings the Old Ones. In 1965, he performed for the CBS-TV show I've Got A Secret, where he sang, "My Melancholy Baby," to the panel after revealing his secret (that he first introduced this famous song).
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