Charles E. Henderson

Charles Edward Henderson - songwriter, conductor, pianist, arranger, vocal coach, lyricist and author. Born in Massachusetts in 1907, he was considered a musical prodigy. Little Charlie was giving Bach recitals on piano at seven years of age and began studying music theory at eight. his formal education included the Roxbury Latin School and Harvard University where he was a student of Walter Piston, Ernst Toch, and Victor Bay. He was a member of, and wrote much material for The Hasty Pudding Club productions and also wrote his first hit song, Deep Night with lyrics by Rudy Vallee during his college years.

After his graduation from Harvard (cum laude) in 1928, he became the featured pianist and arranger for The Fred Waring orchestra, joining ASCAP in 1931. While with Fred he began his vocal music career by writing arrangements for Fred's trio, The Three Girlfriends (later known as The Three Waring Girls.) He married one of those girls, Ida Pearson and together they had two children, Sally (1933-) and Peter (1938-.) He left Waring in the early 30's to freelance around New York working with various bands and appearing as accompanist and arranger on frequent radio broadcasts. Maestro Andre Kostelanetz hired him to do his radio programs' vocal arranging and coaching and this eventually established him as the premier vocal master in the country.

Inevitably he was noticed by the movie industry and Hollywood beckoned. Moving to California, he began a ten year stint in pictures, mostly under Alfred Newman at 20th Century Fox where he did the vocal direction on all the big Fox musicals of the forties, The Dolly Sisters, the original State Fair and many others. His first big picture was with Irving Berlin and the production of Alexander's Ragtime Band. He also did the vocal arrangements that were heard all through the Disney blockbuster, Bambi. Another Disney feature he had a hand in was Fantasia. In fact, he worked on quite a few of the Disney features of the day.

Charlie was also Betty Grable's personal vocal coach and toured with her during WWII as her conductor and accompanist. During these halcyon Hollywood years he participated in more than 300 movies, conducting and writing theme songs, background music and transitions. Somehow during this plethora of movie work he, along with co-author Charles Palmer, found the time to write a book considered essntial for aspiring vocalists, How to Sing For Money.

But the end of the forties saw a big change in the movie industry as television was making serious inroads on movie revenues. The major studios began tightening their belts and permanent contracted personnel was being let go. So, seeing the writing on the wall, Henderson went to work in television, producing the show Stop The Music out of New York. After a couple of years of this Charlie was called back to Hollywood for more movie chores and did the vocal direction on The Helen Morgan Story Paramount), April Love (Fox) and The Music Man (Warner Brothers) among others. He had remarried while at Fox Studios, having divorced Ida after fourteen sometimes stormy years. He met his new wife while working on a Fox movie Four Jills In A Jeep in the early forties. She was a young starlet and a fantastic dancer, Mitzi Mayfair, and that union lasted another fourteen years.

After returning to Hollywood, Charlie turned his music and lyric writing talents to creating special material and Las Vegas nightclub acts for various clients such as Jayne Mansfield, Anne Blythe, Nat Cole's widow, Maria and other notables.

Charles Henderson was semi-retired and living in Laguna Beach, California with his third wife, the former Bliss Jones when he passed away in March of 1970. In addition to Bliss, his survivors were his two children and six grandchildren. He also left a wonderful legacy of musical magic. His hit songs included Deep Night, Carefree (the Kostelanetz radio theme), So Beats My Heart For You (lyrics), This Is The Chance Of A Lifetime and others. But his work for Disney was arguably his finest.