Jane Morgan - Early Career

Early Career

Morgan sang popular songs in nightclubs, private parties, bar mitzvahs, and small restaurants to earn spending money to help pay for her tuition expenses at Juilliard. Eventually she was hired as a singer at the Roseland Ballroom in Manhattan with the house second band for $25 a week, six nights a week. While she was still in Juilliard (1944), orchestra leader Art Mooney heard her perform and hired her. Mooney changed her name to Jane Morgan by taking the first name of one of his vocalists, Janie Ford, and the last name of another, Marian Morgan.

In 1948, she was selected by French impresario Bernard Hilda to accompany him to Paris. Hilda was a prominent French society bandleader who needed a young singer to perform at a nightclub that he planned to open near the Eiffel Tower. Morgan began to appear regularly at the Club des Champs-Elysées, performing (two shows per night) American songs to mostly French audiences. Her mother had taught her French and Italian, so she quickly became proficient in French, and performed her act in flawless French, singing the classic songs of Cole Porter, George Gershwin, French songs, and standards of the century. Morgan became a sensation in Paris, and accompanied by Hilda and his gypsy violin, quickly became known throughout France. French café society frequented Hilda's upscale club, which was likened to the Copacabana in New York. Many French songwriters, including Charles Trenet, frequented the club, and they wrote several songs that became hit recordings for Morgan. Morgan and Hilda soon opened a new weekly hour-long television show, and she began recording in 1949 on the French Polydor label as well as Parlophone, Philips, and others.

In 1952 Morgan went to Montreal, Canada, and opened at the Ritz Hotel as a soloist with a bilingual act using French and English. She returned to New York with regular performances in upscale nightclubs and her own radio show on NBC, backed by the 50-piece NBC Symphony Orchestra. She also performed at the St. Regis Hotel in New York. She returned to Europe in 1954 to appear in a London West End review with comedian Vic Oliver, and later at the Savoy Theatre and London Palladium. During this period, she married Larry Stith.