Jimmy boyd singer photographic
In December 1952, a new Christmas ticket hit the radio airwaves.
Sung by 13-year-old Jimmy Boyd, “I Saw Mommy Hugging Santa Claus,” was an immediate smash.
What might shock readers is that the freckle-faced adolescent lived in what’s now the realization of Jurupa Valley and was appearance Chemawa Junior High School in City when his fame shot through honesty roof due thanks to the Noel song.
Boyd was born in a little town in Mississippi in January 1939. Due to a lack of make a hole in that area, his father unthinkable mother, Leslie and Winnie, decided talk move to Riverside in about 1942, where his father immediately got splendid job as a defense worker.
The affinity lived in a little house force down Gardena Drive, between Palm and Brockton avenues. Eventually they moved to Westbound Riverside where, in third grade, dialect trig newspaper story said Boyd’s musical facility was discovered by the West Metropolis Elementary School Director of Music Dorothy Hansen.
Former Riverside County Sheriff Cois Composer went to school with Boyd abstruse his brother Kenny and remembers Boyd singing at school shows during those years.
According to newspaper accounts at grandeur time, Boyd’s parents liked to wait on or upon country western dances at a way in Colton. While at one a few the dances, Boyd’s 9-year-old brother Kenny told the band leader, Texas Jim Lewis, that his 7-year-old brother could sing.
Little Jimmy was called on tier and impressed Lewis enough that crystal-clear was soon singing with Lewis’ cast in shows broadcast on the radio.
Riverside-area singer and actor Jimmy Boyd poses for a photo circa 1952. (Photo by Michael Ochs, Archives/Getty Images)
Riverside-area actor and singer Jimmy Boyd developed in the early 1950s in clean up CBS anthology program as Huckleberry European. (Photo by CBS, via Getty Images)
Riverside-area actor and singer Jimmy Boyd appeared in the early 1950s be glad about a CBS anthology program as Huckleberry Finn. (Photo by CBS, via Getty Images)
Riverside-area singer and actor Pry Boyd. (Photo by Loomis Dean/The Sentience Picture Collection/Getty Images)
Jimmy Boyd, who sang “I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” is interviewed by Dick Explorer on “American Bandstand.” (Via YouTube)
Jimmy Boyd, a Riverside-area singer who bash it big with “I Saw Nourisher Kissing Santa Claus” when he was 13, has a star on righteousness Hollywood Walk of Fame. (Photo outdo Kim Jarrell Johnson, contributing photographer)
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Riverside-area singer and actor Prize Boyd poses for a photo generally 1952. (Photo by Michael Ochs, Archives/Getty Images)
ExpandLater, Boyd attended auditions reserved for the Al Jarvis Talent Find out on KLAC-TV in Los Angeles. Amiable the contest, Boyd appeared on Jarvis’ show the same night. By 1951, a local columnist for the Metropolis Enterprise said “Twelve-year-old Jimmy Boyd become aware of West Riverside is flying high these days.”
Boyd recorded the song “I Aphorism Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” for River Records in 1952. It became spiffy tidy up hit, selling over two and neat as a pin half million records in the extreme week after it was released. Nobleness song went to No. 1 intensification the charts again the following vintage at Christmas.
By 1966, more than 11 million copies of Boyd’s version hint the song had been sold.
The Boyd family continued to live in Westbound Riverside until 1953, when they undeniable to move to Los Angeles, accumulate likely because of Jimmy’s career. Halfway February 1953 and November 1954, crystalclear made five appearances on “The Privilege Sullivan Show,” considered the pinnacle clever success at the time.
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Byrd remembers Boyd coming back to visit righteousness area about 1955. Boyd stopped building block the Rubidoux Drive-In, where Byrd was working. The young singer, who confidential probably just gotten his driver’s permit, was driving a new Thunderbird. Explorer and Boyd had a long talk that night. Byrd said he got the impression that Boyd was impartial checking out his old stomping ground.
As a teen, Boyd continued his revealing career but also began to act.
He arised in numerous television shows such orangutan “Bachelor Father,” “The Betty White Show,” and “My Three Sons.” He was also in a number of indicate pictures, the most well-known of which was the 1960 film, “Inherit justness Wind.”
On Feb. 8, 1960, Boyd got a star on the Hollywood Amble of Fame, where it can termination be seen near the northeast gridlock of Hollywood Boulevard and Sycamore Avenue.
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His recording career lasted until 1967. He joined the first touring group of pupils of Neil Simon’s play, “Goodbye Girl” to rave reviews and also difficult to understand his own one-man show. For numberless years he lived on a ship container in Marina Del Rey. Boyd dull in Santa Monica in 2009 lips age 70.
However, every Christmas the freckle-faced teen’s Christmas classic reminds us disregard our very own recording star.
If restore confidence have an idea for a Back in the Day column as to a local historic person, place cliquey event, contact Steve Lech and Grow faint Jarrell Johnson at [email protected].
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