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Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 10:18:09 -0400 (EDT)
From: LBroderic~EBTV.NET (L. Brodericks)
Subject: LARRY ADLER OBITUARY/BIOGRAPHY


August 7, 2001

Harmonica Virtuoso Larry Adler Dies

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 7:35 a.m. ET

LONDON (AP) -- Larry Adler, the virtuoso of the humble harmonica, has
died at age 87, his manager said Tuesday.

Adler died Monday night at St. Thomas's Hospital in London, said manager
Jonathan Shalit. The cause of death was not announced, but Adler has
been treated for cancer and had suffered two strokes.

``Only three weeks ago we were talking about him doing a concert in
China. He was very active until the end, that was one of the things
which made him such a remarkable man,´´ Shalit said.

Adler played with the greats -- George Gershwin, Paul Whiteman, Jack
Benny, Django Reinhardt and, late in life, with Sting. Ralph Vaughan
Williams, Malcolm Arnold, Darius Milhaud and Joaquin Rodrigo composed
for him. Billie Holiday told him, ``Man, you don´t play that thing --
you sing it.´´

All his life, Adler remained at heart the brash teen-ager who caused
gasps in Britain by striding up to King George V to shake his hand,
rather than bowing as protocol demanded.

When Adler played at the White House, President Harry Truman sat down at
the piano to accompany ``The Missouri Waltz.´´ When the music ended,
Adler cracked: ``You´re a hell of a better president than you are a
pianist.´´

He caught the showbiz bug as a youngster growing up in Baltimore,
reputedly entertaining players at a local pool hall at age 2, singing
``I´ve Got Those Profiteering Blues.´´

At 10 he was the youngest cantor in the city, and got a place at the
Peabody School of Music -- where he was shortly dismissed as
``incorrigible, untalented, and entirely lacking in ear.´´ Adler
joked that he took up the harmonica to impress girls. What he loved
about the instrument, he said in a 1997 interview with the Sarasota
Herald-Tribune, is ``the lonesomeness of it, the intimacy.´´

A year after winning a talent contest in Baltimore, playing a Beethoven
minuet on the harmonica, he ran away to New York City. Only 14, he
sneaked into Rudy Vallee's dressing room to plead for a break.
``You´re a novelty, kid,´´ he recalled Vallee telling him. ``Save
your money because once they hear you, that´s it. They´ll never want
to hear it again.´´

Vallee nonetheless hired him to play at the Heigh-Ho Club, and helped
Adler get a job playing harmonica for Mickey Mouse cartoons. Adler
teamed with dancer Paul Draper in 1941, and their successful act
continued until 1949.

He toured with Jack Benny to entertain troops during World War II, but
in 1947 his earlier activity in anti-fascist groups led to a summons
from the House Committee on Un-American Activities ``My agent called me
and said, ´Unless you´re willing to come back to the States, make a
complete public, noncommunist affidavit, and then go before the
Un-American Activities Committee and name names, it´s not worthwhile
your coming back,´´´ Adler said in a 1995 interview with National
Public Radio. So he stayed in Britain.

In an interview with The Associated Press in 1989, Adler said the
communist witch hunts made him ``lose all respect for the country,´´
but said he declined to describe himself as an exile. ``That´s too
dramatic,´´ he said. ``I wasn´t driven out ... It wasn´t
unbearable. I just didn´t like it.´´ Adler´s score for the 1953
film ``Genevieve´´ was nominated for an Oscar, though in someone
else´s name. He was not acknowledged as the true composer until 31
years later.

Adler had become hugely popular in Britain in the 1930s, when he played
in a London revue called ``Streamline.´´ Fan clubs sprouted all over
the country and a 1937 revue, ``Tune Inn,´´ was written around him.
The British composer William Walton said: ``The only two young musical
geniuses in the world are Yehudi Menuhin and Larry Adler.´´ Still
playing in his 80s, Adler showed a shaky memory at the Edinburgh
Festival in 1999 when he played Gershwin´s ``Someone To Watch Over
Me´´ twice. When he realized his mistake, he told the audience:
``Demand a refund.´´

Adler wrote books including ``Jokes and How to Tell Them´´ in 1963
and an autobiography, ``It Ain´t Necessarily So´´ in 1985. He
wrote for The Sunday Times, Punch, The Spectator and New Statesman, he
was a restaurant critic for Harpers and Queen magazine. In Who´s Who,
he listed his ``obsession´´ as writing letters to Private Eye, the
satirical biweekly.

In 1988 Adler starred on an 80th birthday album, produced by Sir George
Martin, assisted by Cher, Sting, Sir Elton John, Robert Palmer, John Bon
Jovi, Meatloaf, Carly Simon, Elvis Costello, Lisa Stansfield, Peter
Gabriel and Sinead O'Connor.

One of Adler's favorite stories was about a party in Chicago, where a
guest interrogated the young performer about whether he attended
synagogue faithfully, and wrote to his parents. Adler said he wrote
every couple of weeks. As he told the tale to NPR:

``What kind of kid are you?´ he said. ´Look, kid, get your coat, go
back to your hotel, sit down and write your mother and father a letter.
And this Saturday, I don´t give a damn how many shows you got to do,
you´re going to go to shul like a good Jewish boy.´ ``And I went
over to the comedian in my show, and I said, ´Who´s that busybody I
was talking to?´ He said, ´You´re kidding.´ I said, ´What´s
his name?´ He said, ´Al Capone.´´´

Adler´s two marriages ended in divorces.

He is survived by four children, two grandchildren and two
great-grandchildren, Shalit said.

Funeral arrangements were not immediately announced.