Beatrice
Ruth Wain (April
30, 1917 – August 19, 2017) was an American Big Band-era singer and radio personality
born in the Bronx, New York City. She had several hits with Larry Clinton and His Orchestra, including "My Reverie",
"Deep Purple", and
"Heart and Soul". Wain and announcer Andre Baruch, her husband, co-hosted radio programs from the
1940s to the 1980s. Wain made her debut on radio at age six as a "featured
performer" on the NBC Children's Hour As an adult, she
sang regularly on The Larry Clinton Show (NBC 1938), Monday
Merry-Go-Round (NBC Blue 1941–1942), Starlight Serenade (Mutual
1944), and Your Hit Parade. She led
the vocal group Bea and the Bachelors (with Al Rinker, Ken Lane, and John
Smedberg)[4] and the V8 (seven boys and a girl) on the The Fred
Waring Show. In 1937, Wain joined former Tommy Dorsey arranger Larry
Clinton and His Orchestra, which she joined after doing chorus
work with Fred Waring and Ted Sttraeter.[ Her debut with Clinton was made in the summer
of 1938 at the Glen Island Casino, New Rochelle, New York. On
a 1937 recording with Artie Shaw, she was
credited as Beatrice Wayne, which led some to assume that was her
real name. On record labels, her name was shortened (without her permission) to
"Bea" by the record company, ostensibly for space considerations. As
she explained, "They cut it to 'Bea' Wain. They cut the 'Beatrice' out to
'Bea.' I was just a little old girl singer, but that's the truth. So that's how
my name became 'Bea Wain'". Wain's recording of My
Reverie (Victor 26006) with the Clinton orchestra stayed at the top of
the chart for eight weeks in 1938. Her other popular recordings included
"Deep Purple," "Heart and Soul," and "Martha." Wain
was the first artist to record the Harold Arlen-Yip Harburg classic "Over the Rainbow" (on December 7, 1938, with Clinton's
orchestra), but MGM prohibited the
release until The Wizard of Oz (1939)
had opened and audiences heard Judy Garland perform it. Wain
rarely made recordings after she left the Clinton orchestra in 1939, focusing
primarily on her work on radio. Following World War II, Wain worked with her
husband, Andre Baruch, as a disc
jockey team in New York on WMCA, where they were billed as "Mr. and Mrs.
Music". An article in the May 1949 issue of Radio Best magazine
noted, "In the trade she is looked upon as an accurate picker of hits and
is a favorite song plugger of tunesmiths like Cole Porter, Johnny Mercer, Harold Arlen and Harry Warren". In
1973, the couple moved to Palm Beach, Florida, where
for nine years they had a top-rated daily four-hour talk show from 2 p.m. - 6
p.m. on WPBR before relocating to Beverly Hills. During the early 1980s, the pair
hosted a syndicated version of Your Hit Parade. Baruch died in
1991. In a 2004 interview with Christopher Popa, Wain reflected:
"Actually, I've had a wonderful life, a wonderful career. And I'm still
singing, and I'm still singing pretty good. This past December, I did a series
of shows in Palm Springs, California,
and the review said, "Bea Wain is still a giant." It's something
called Musical Chairs. I did six shows in six different venues, and
I was a smash. And I really got a kick out of it.