- Born
- Died
- William Warfield was a concert baritone singer, who gave his recital debut in New York's Town Hall in 1950. He was then quickly invited by the Australian Broadcast Corporation to tour Australia for thirty-five concerts. As an actor, he appeared in only two motion pictures, one of them being his memorable performance as Joe in the 1951 version of Show Boat (1951), filmed at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), the other as a tugboat captain in "Old Explorers". He played another dramatic role on live television in the 1950's, as De Lawd in "The Green Pastures" on the "Hallmark Hall of Fame".- IMDb Mini Biography By: rocknrollunderdawg and Albert Sanchez Moreno
- SpouseLeontyne Price(August 31, 1952 - 1972) (divorced)
- The song "Ol' Man River" from 'Show Boat.'
- In 1955, he was chosen by the Philadelphia Orchestra as their official soloist on the orchestra's first tour of Europe.
- During the 1980s was chair of vocal music for the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign's School of Music.
- Was a professor of voice at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- African-American bass-baritone singer-actor in concert recitals, operas, oratorios, films, symphonies with speaking roles, and jazz programs such as NPR's "Riverwalk".
- He became almost as identified with the song "Ol' Man River" as Paul Robeson had a generation earlier, and starred with Leontyne Price and Cab Calloway in a European tour of Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess". This "Porgy and Bess" played to sold-out houses all over Europe. It was performed to huge acclaim in Russia during the early days of the Cold War, and was the first American opera production to ever play Milan's La Scala Opera House. It wound up its tour on Broadway in 1953 (without Warfield, who was forced to drop out immediately prior because of earlier recording commitments). In contrast to the original 1935 production of the opera, it received rave reviews from the New York critics. It ran eight months on Broadway, one month less than the 1942 revival, but nevertheless rang up more performances - 305 - than any other production of "Porgy and Bess" to ever play in New York, at least until 2006. As it happened, it played at the Ziegfeld, the theatre at which the original 1927 production of "Show Boat" and its 1946 revival both played.
- [conductor Eugene Ormandy introduces Warfield to the audience in an unintentionally humorous way:] "With us tonight is William Warfield, who is with us tonight. He is a wonderful man, and so is his wife."
- I wanted it all. I wanted 'Show Boat' and 'Porgy' as well as Brahms and Faure. I wanted the spirituals along with the boogie-woogie, and grand opera too. I wanted the Hollywood film and I wanted the bistro gig, the international tour and the White House Command Performance.
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