Marilyn King in May 2009. At the time, Marilyn was one of the three sisters still living.
The King Sisters were an American big band-era vocal group, appearing as a trio or quartet. Six sisters were in the group at one time or another: Alyce, Donna, Luise, Marilyn, Maxine, and Yvonne King.
Their first professional job was with a Salt Lake City radio station, from which they graduated to a station in Oakland, California. In the early 1930s sisters Luise, Maxine, and Alyce formed a vocal trio along the lines of their idols, the Boswell Sisters, and traveled to San Francisco to audition for radio station KGO (to replace the Boswell Sisters themselves, who were leaving the station). After this, Maxine retired to home life in Oakland and sisters Donna and Yvonne were added to the roster.[2]
In 1935, the King Sisters accepted a job with bandleader Horace Heidt. Their employment was on-again, off-again, with the sisters leaving the band in November 1935 to return to their home state, only to be rehired by Heidt the next year.[3] In the following years, the sisters sang separately and together with the bands of Artie Shaw's Old Gold program and Charlie Barnet and Al Pearce series. They turned down a request to be the vocal group for the Glenn Miller Orchestra. They recorded for Bluebird Records, a sub-label of RCA Victor and the same label as Miller, and also had their first hit with a vocal version of Miller's hit, "In the Mood".
In 1937, Luise married Horace Heidt's guitarist, Alvino Rey. Rey left the Heidt orchestra to form his own band, and the King Sisters became Rey's resident vocalists.
Most vintage-movie fans know the group as The Four King Sisters: Yvonne, Luise, Alyce, and Donna. The foursome made their first appearance in the 1939 musical Second Fiddle (1939) and went on to be featured in a number of 1940s Hollywood films, both feature-length and short-subject musicals, as well as three-minute Soundies musicals filmed for coin-operated film jukeboxes. During World War II, they appeared regularly on Kay Kyser's radio series.
In late 1953, Alyce, Yvonne, and Marilyn joined Gene Autry's Melody Ranch on CBS Radio as the Gene Autry Blue Jeans, replacing the Pinafores (Eunice, Beulah, and Ione Kettle), and continued there along with Alvino Rey until the program's end in early May 1956.
In 1965, the King Sisters began hosting their own ABC TV series, The King Family Show, which featured family members including Alyce's husband, actor Robert Clarke, and her sons Ric de Azevedo, pianist-arranger Lex de Azevedo, and Cam Clarke, as well as other talent. The show ran from 1965 to 1966, with a 1969 revival.[4]
A second generation of the King Family, the Four King Cousins, carries on the musical tradition. More prominently, Luise's grandsons Win and William Butler are also musicians as part of the rock band Arcade Fire.
Deaths
Alyce King Clarke died on August 23, 1996, from respiratory problems, aged 81. Luise King Rey died on August 4, 1997, aged 83, from cancer, in the year of her 60th wedding anniversary to Alvino Rey. Donna King Conkling died on June 16, 2007, aged 88, in Plano, Texas. Maxine King Thomas died on May 13, 2009, aged 97 in Corona, California.[5] Yvonne "Vonnie" King Burch died on December 13, 2009, aged 89, after suffering a fall at her home in Santa Barbara, California.[6] Marilyn King died on August 7, 2013, aged 82, from cancer, also in California; she was the last surviving sister.[7]
^DeLong, Thomas A. (1996). Radio Stars: An Illustrated Biographical Dictionary of 953 Performers, 1920 through 1960. McFarland & Company, Inc. ISBN978-0-7864-2834-2. P. 152.
