Patty Andrews of Andrews Sisters dead at 94

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Patty Andrews, the last surviving member of the singing Andrews Sisters trio whose hits such as the rollicking ‘‘Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B’’ and the poignant ‘‘I Can Dream, Can’t I?’’ captured the home-front spirit of World War II, died Wednesday. She was 94. Andrews died of natural causes at her home in the Los Angeles suburb of Northridge, said family spokesman Alan Eichler in a statement. Patty was the Andrews in the middle, the lead singer and chief clown, whose raucous jitterbugging delighted American servicemen abroad and audiences at home. She could also deliver sentimental ballads like ‘‘I'll Be with You in Apple Blossom Time’’ with a sincerity that caused hardened GIs far from home to weep. From the late 1930s through the 1940s, the Andrews Sisters produced one hit record after another, beginning with ‘‘Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen’’ in 1937 and continuing with ‘‘Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar,’’ ‘'Rum and Coca-Cola’’ and more. They recorded more than 400 songs and sold over 80 million records, several of them going gold (over a million copies).

http%3A//www.boston.com/ae/celebrity/2013/01/30/patty-andrews-andrews-sisters-dead/iiQxxdXhJ6Y4lnWyJRqtQP/story.html



• Wow they were fabulous! Still 94 is a good age.

• She was a homophobe when it came to sister Maxene.

• Bump for the Boogie Woogie Bugle Girl of WWII.

• Saw them several times on Broadway in OVER HERE in 1974. John Travolta was in the cast. They used to do their hits after the curtain calls. Fabulous show. Too bad it's never been revived.

  Wait%20for%20me%20Marlene

• Bless her heart. She and her sisters helped win a world war. Beloved icons of a generation long ago. RIP, Patty, Maxene and Laverne. We won't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but you till we come marching home.

• Nooooooooo

• so few posts :(

• So sad :-(

• Once reason I like Bette is she introduced the Andrew Sisters' music to a new generation. After hearing Bette's versions of the songs, I went out and bought a couple Andrew Sisters albums and Wow! They were the first "World Music" acts in America.

• I can't think of them without thinking about Abbott & Costello.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugnGt8JtRWY

• I understand that in her honor, each of Gordon Ramsay's restaurants Pâté Maison & LaVerne.

• Oh my. That SHOULD read," each of Gordon Ramsay's restaurants will offer Pâté Maison & LaVerne." It is so embarrassing to mess something up with a typo.

  R11

• I'll just leave this here:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DqafnJ6mRbgk

• Mele Kalikimaka!

  http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DWJhYrC8Rq8w

• Maxene was always my fave, but loved them all. Good sister trios all - Andrews, Boswell, McGuire. Plus the Pointers, whether there were three or four.

• Love the Andrews Sisters! I wish more of their 1960s recordings (at least the ones that weren't covers of their own hits from the 30s and 40s) were commercially available. I have some on vinyl and love them. I also liked Patty's appearance on "Here's Lucy" in 1969 where Lucy and Lucie played Laverne and Maxene.

• the sisters' close musical harmonies belied a private relationship that was often troubled, culminating in a falling out between Patty and Maxene that lasted more than 20 years. Music industry insiders blamed it on a dispute between Maxene and Patty's husband, Walter Weschler, the group's conductor and arranger, who died in 2010. Although the sisters lived near each other in the San Fernando Valley, according to published reports, they spoke rarely and saw each other just twice from 1974 to Maxene's death in 1995: when Patty paid a bedside visit to her sister in 1982 after Maxene suffered a heart attack, and in 1987, when they were together at the public dedication of their star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. That year, the two spoke of the feud in separate interviews with The Times. Maxene Andrews said it may simply have been the result of too many years of working so closely together. "There was really no breathing room ... ," she said. "We ate together, slept together, went out socially together. If we were going someplace, we got in the car together.... You can see how glued we were. There had to be a breaking point." Patty Andrews was less willing to speak about the issue, but said her sister was just jealous. "Ever since I was born, Maxene has been a problem, and that problem hasn't stopped," she said, but declined to discuss the matter further. "I'm not going to do anything or say anything to destroy that image that the people love," she said. "I hear that from the people that they love the Andrews Sisters and it's a joy to them. Who am I to take that away?"

  http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-patty-andrews-20130131%2C0%2C4952137.story

• Patty's comments in r17's post sort of confirm what I've read over the years that Patty was a diva and a bit of a control freak when it came to the group. LaVerne opted out of the group and the fights long before her death from cancer.

• So sorry to hear this. I had just done some research on them and her last week. Now it truly is the end of an era - I don't think anyone of their and her presence and influence is left.

• She rolled out and took the barrel with her.

• [quote]Saw them several times on Broadway in OVER HERE in 1974. John Travolta was in the cast. Marilu Henner and Treat Williams were also in the OVER HERE cast.

• Sad...

• Rum and Coca-cola for everyone!

• I can remember standing on the car seat next to my dad as the Andrew Sisters sang on the radio. It's a memory that plays like a fading news reel.That was in the mid 40s. I'm guessing a year or two before the War ended. I was too young to know about the war, but some of those boogie woogie tunes were quite catchy to tiny guys ears. My dad just past the end of last Sept. He was 93, a contemporary of these gals.

• Hold tight, hold tight.

• Were any of their kids or grandkids singers?

• I loved them singing I Can Dream, Can't I? and Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B!

• [quote]I don't think anyone of their and her presence and influence is left. *ahem*

  Doris%20Day

• They were not happy women. When their parents were around they got along, and as soon as their parents died (both within the space of one year) they just fought and fought. LaVerne was the peacemaker, and would always take her parents' side in things over the other two. Patty was the most talented but also wanted to branch out the most, and she blamed Maxene for everything. I'm not sure that Maxene was necessarily more to blame for anything than Patty was.

• Wow. I never knew Maxine Andrews was a lesbian. Her gf was almost 30 years younger than she was. Maxie adopted her(Lynda Wells) and left everything in her will to Lynda and nothing to her adopted children from her marriage to a man, though they were beneficiaries of some of her insurance policies.

• Andrews Sisters & The Supremes !

  http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DHgTsBsSngrc