Melvin Howard Tormé (September 13, 1925, Chicago, Illinois, USA – June 5, 1999, Los Angeles, California, USA), nicknamed The Velvet Fog, was an American musician, best known as a singer of jazz standards. He was also a jazz composer and arranger, drummer, an actor in radio, film, and television, and the author of five books. He composed the music for "The Christmas Song" ("Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire") and co-wrote the lyrics with Bob Wells.
Melvin Howard Tormé was born in Chicago, Illinois, to immigrant Russian Jewish parents whose surname had been Torma. A child prodigy, he first performed professionally at age 4 with the Coon-Sanders Orchestra, singing "You're Driving Me Crazy" at Chicago's Blackhawk restaurant.
He played drums in the drum-and-bugle corps at Shakespeare Elementary School. From 1933–41, he acted in the radio programs The Romance of Helen Trent and Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy. He wrote his first song at 13. Three years later his first published song, "Lament to Love," became a hit for bandleader Harry James.
From 1942–1943 he was a member of a band led by Chico Marx of the Marx Brothers. He was the singer, drummer, and also did some arrangements.
In 1943, Tormé made his movie debut in Frank Sinatra's first film, the musical Higher and Higher. His appearance in the 1947 film musical Good News made him a teen idol.
In 1944 he formed the vocal quintet Mel Tormé and His Mel-Tones, modeled on Frank Sinatra and The Pied Pipers. The Mel-Tones, which included Les Baxter and Ginny O'Connor, had several hits fronting Artie Shaw's band and on their own, including Cole Porter's "What Is This Thing Called Love?" The Mel-Tones were among the first jazz-influenced vocal groups, blazing a path later followed by The Hi-Lo's, The Four Freshmen, and The Manhattan Transfer.
In 1960, Tormé appeared in the TV crime drama Dan Raven with Don Dubbins. He had a role in a cross-cultural western entitled Walk Like a Dragon, starring Jack Lord. He played "The Deacon", a bible-quoting gunfighter who protects a female saloon-owner and teaches a young Chinese man the art of the fast draw. In one scene, he tells a soon-to-be victim: "Say your prayers, brother Masters. You're a corpse" and then delivers on the promise. Like Sammy Davis Jr. and Robert Fuller, Tormé was a real-life fast-draw expert. He also sang the show's theme song.
In 1963–64, Tormé wrote songs and arrangements for The Judy Garland Show, where he made three guest appearances. When he and Garland had a dispute, he was fired. A few years later, after Garland's death, his time with her show became the subject of his first book, The Other Side of the Rainbow with Judy Garland on the Dawn Patrol (1970). Although the book was praised, some felt it painted an excessively unflattering picture of Garland and that Tormé had exaggerated his contributions to the program; it led to an unsuccessful lawsuit by Garland's family.
Tormé made nine guest appearances as himself on the 1980s situation comedy Night Court. The main character, Judge Harry Stone played by Harry Anderson, was depicted as an unabashed Tormé fan, an admiration that Anderson shared in real-life; he would deliver the eulogy at Tormé's funeral. Tormé appeared in Mountain Dew commercials and on an episode of the sitcom Seinfeld ("The Jimmy"). He recorded a version of Nat King Cole's "Straighten Up and Fly Right" with his son, singer Steve March Tormé. He worked with his other son, television writer-producer Tracy Tormé, on Sliders. The 1996 episode, entitled "Greatfellas," featured Tormé as a version of himself from a parallel universe in which he is a country music singer who is also an FBI informant.
In the 1988 Warner Bros. cartoon The Night of the Living Duck, Daffy Duck has to sing in front of several monsters but lacks a good singing voice, so he inhales a substance called "Eau de Tormé" and sings like Mel Tormé, who provided the vocals.
Mel Tormé was married four times. His marriages ended in divorce except the last one. He was survived by his wife, Ali; five children, Steve March-Tormé, Melissa Torme-March and Tracy, Daisy and James Tormé; and two stepchildren, Carrie Tormé and Kurt. Tracy is a screenwriter and producer. James Tormé is a jazz vocalist based in Los Angeles, California. Steve March-Tormé is also a musician who lives and works in Appleton, Wisconsin.
On August 8, 1996, a stroke ended Tormé's 65-year singing career. In February 1999, he was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He died from another stroke on June 5, 1999, at the age of 73. He is buried at the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. In his eulogistic essay, John Andrews wrote:
Tormé's style shared much with that of his idol, Ella Fitzgerald. Both were firmly rooted in the foundation of the swing era, but both seemed able to incorporate bebop innovations to keep their performances sounding fresh and contemporary. Like Sinatra, they sang with perfect diction and brought out the emotional content of the lyrics through subtle alterations of phrasing and harmony. Ballads were characterized by paraphrasing of the original melody which always seemed tasteful, appropriate and respectful to the vision of the songwriter. Unlike Sinatra, both Fitzgerald and Tormé were likely to cut loose during a swinging up-tempo number with several scat choruses, using their voices without words to improvise a solo like a brass or reed instrument.
| Year | Image | Character | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1988 | 
|
Daffy Duck | Daffy Duck's Quackbusters |