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Ross Bagdasarian

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Ross S. BagdasarianTemplate:Efn (Template:IPAc-en; January 27, 1919 – January 16, 1972), known professionally by his stage name David "Dave" Seville,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> was an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actor best known for creating the cartoon band Alvin and the Chipmunks. Initially a stage and film actor, he rose to prominence in 1958 with the songs "Witch Doctor" and "The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)", which both became Billboard number-one singles. He produced and directed The Alvin Show, which aired on CBS in 1961–62.

Early lifeEdit

BagdasarianTemplate:Efn was born on January 27, 1919, in Fresno, California to an Armenian-American family.Template:Sfn His father was a grape grower.<ref name=bronson /> He had two elder brothers: Richard Sirak (1910–1966) and Harry Sisvan (1915–1989).Template:Sfn The novelist William Saroyan, with whom he was very close, was his first cousin.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Bagdasarian graduated from Fresno High School in 1937.Template:Sfn He went to New York to work with his cousin Saroyan with the intention of becoming an actor.<ref name=bronson>Template:Cite book</ref> When World War II started, he enlisted and served four years as a control tower operatorTemplate:Sfn and rose to the rank of a staff sergeant (SSgt) in the Army Air Forces.<ref name="agbu"/> He spent time in England, France and Spain;<ref name=bronson /> his later stage name "David Seville" originated from the fact that he was stationed in the city of Seville in Spain and he liked the city.<ref name=bronson /><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

After the war, he returned to Fresno and married Armenouhi "Armen" Kulhanjian, and they tried for a time to be grape growers. They were unsuccessful and they moved to Los Angeles where he started a career as a songwriter.<ref name=bronson />

CareerEdit

ActingEdit

Bagdasarian's Broadway debut was in 1939 when he played the newsboy in The Time of Your Life by William Saroyan, his cousin.<ref name="nyt"/> He also appeared in minor roles in several films, such as Viva Zapata! (1952), Stalag 17 (1953), Destination Gobi (1953), and The Proud and Profane (1956).<ref name="Talevski"/><ref name="nyt"/> In Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954), he is the lonely composer at the piano.<ref name="Pearson"/>

Singing and songwritingEdit

Bagdasarian's first major success with songwriting came with "Come On-a My House", which he co-wrote with William Saroyan in 1939. The song was rejected by many record companies as being "too ethnic", and it was not recorded until 1950 (by Kay Armen). The songwriters themselves recorded it as a duet in 1951. Mitch Miller of Columbia Records came across the song and persuaded Rosemary Clooney to record it.<ref name=bronson /> It became a million-selling hit.<ref name="Talevski"/> It is an adaptation of an Armenian folk song Bagdasarian wrote with his cousin William Saroyan.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Bentley09"/> The song was originally composed for their off-Broadway musical The Son.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> It launched Clooney's career, reaching number one on Billboard charts and was number four on Billboard year-end top 30 singles of 1951.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The song sold some 750,000 records in a month.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> In 1954, Bagdasarian wrote "Hey, Brother, Pour the Wine", a hit for Dean Martin.<ref name="Talevski"/>

In 1955 Bagdasarian signed with the then newly established Liberty Records. In early 1956 he had a transcontinental hit with the novelty record "The Trouble with Harry" (inspired by the homonymous Hitchcock film) credited to Alfi & Harry,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> although Alfi & Harry was just one person, Bagdasarian himself.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> It reached No. 44 on the Billboard chart<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> and was a bigger hit in the United Kingdom reaching No. 15.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In 1956, he wrote an instrumental "Armen's Theme" named after his wife. The executives at Liberty Records suggested that he adopt a pseudonym as they thought his name too difficult to pronounce.<ref name=bronson /> In December 1956, he charted with his first record credited to his David Seville pseudonym, and "Armen's Theme" reached No. 42 on the Billboard chart.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Dave Seville and the ChipmunksEdit

File:Ross Bagdasarian Sr.jpg
Bagdasarian pictured in the 1950s

Bagdasarian's rise to prominence came with the song "Witch Doctor" in 1958,<ref name="Bill63"/> which was created after he experimented with the speed control on a tape recorder bought with $200 (Template:Inflation) from the family savings.<ref name="people"/> Liberty Records released this novelty record under the David Seville name. It is a duet between his real voice and accelerated version.<ref name="Talevski"/> The record went on to become a Billboard number-one single by April 28, 1958, and further established him as a songwriter.<ref name="Bentley09"/> It sold 1.5 million copies.<ref name="Adams"/>

Bagdasarian went on to create his trio of Chipmunks named after the executives of Liberty Records: Simon, Theodore, and Alvin, named for Simon "Si" Waronker, Theodore "Ted" Keep, and Alvin Bennett.<ref name="Talevski"/><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Their debut song, "The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)" was released on November 17, 1958, and became a number one hit by New Years Day.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The song sold 4 million records in the first few months.<ref name="nyt"/> It topped Billboard charts the two weeks before and two weeks after New Years and won three Grammy Awards at the 1st Annual Grammy Awards on May 4, 1959: Best Recording for Children, Best Comedy Performance, and Best Non-Classical Engineered Song.<ref name="latimes"/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Bagdasarian won the first two as David Seville. The song was the 23rd most performed Christmas song of the 20th century.<ref>According to the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. Template:Cite book</ref>

Shana Alexander, writing for Life magazine in 1959, noted that Bagdasarian was the first case in the "annals of popular music that one man has served as writer, composer, publisher, conductor and multiple vocalist of a hit record, thereby directing all possible revenues from the song back into his pocket." Alexander also found it remarkable that Bagdasarian "can neither read nor write music nor play any musical instrument in the accepted sense of the word."<ref>Template:Cite magazine 23 March 1959</ref> Bagdasarian owned Chipmunk Enterprises, which sponsored Chipmunk-related sales. By 1963, some 15 companies were using or planned to use Alvin figures. By that year, Billboard magazine estimated the total income from the Chipmunks' record sales (including overseas sales) and record club sales to be around $20 million ($Template:Format price adjusted for inflation in Template:Inflation/year dollars).<ref name="Bill63">Template:Cite magazine</ref>

In the following years, the Chipmunks released several hit songs: "Alvin's Harmonica" (1959), "Ragtime Cowboy Joe" (1959), "Alvin's Orchestra" (1960), "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" (1960), "The Alvin Twist" (1962), and the album The Chipmunks Sing the Beatles Hits in 1964 during the British Invasion.<ref name="Talevski"/>

Bagdasarian produced The Alvin Show, a half-hour TV cartoon show broadcast on CBS from October 1961 to September 1962.<ref name="nyt"/>

In 1968, Alvin and the Chipmunks recorded a version of "The Chipmunk Song" with the rock band Canned Heat, who also recorded for Liberty Records.

Personal lifeEdit

Bagdasarian married Armenouhi "Armen" Kulhanjian (1927–1991) in 1946.Template:SfnTemplate:Efn They had three children: Carol Askine (b. 1947), an actress; Ross Jr. (b. 1949); and Adam Serak (b. 1954), a fiction writer.Template:Sfn<ref name="people"/><ref name="Pearson"/> They lived in Los Angeles from 1950.<ref name="Bentley09"/><ref name="Talevski"/> As of 1963, he owned a grape ranch in California called the Chipmunk Ranch.<ref name="Bill63"/> In the mid-1960s, he bought Sierra Wine Corp., a winery that supplied product, among others, to E & J Gallo Winery.<ref name="Pearson"/>

Death and legacyEdit

Bagdasarian died of a heart attack at his home in Beverly Hills on January 16, 1972, eleven days before his 53rd birthday.<ref name="nyt" /><ref name="Talevski" /> He was cremated and inurned at the Chapel of the Pines Crematory in Los Angeles.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Bagdasarian willed the Chipmunks franchise to his wife and three children.<ref name="people"/> Ross Jr. said in an interview that he "worshipped" his father and felt a need to continue his work.<ref name="people"/> He resumed the franchise with his wife Janice Karman in the late 1970s, after finishing law school,<ref name="Bentley09"/> and became the complete owner when he bought the rights from his siblings in the mid-1990s.<ref name="Pearson"/>

DiscographyEdit

Template:See also

AlbumsEdit

FilmographyEdit

See alsoEdit

ReferencesEdit

Notes

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Citations

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BibliographyEdit

External linksEdit

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