Rise to Fame
The story has it that a drunk patron at a Hollywood club demanded the pianist sing, and Cole obliged. The room went wild, and the most gifted jazz pianist of his generation suddenly had a side hustle that ate his whole career. His drummerless King Cole Trio had been setting the standard for small jazz groups since the late 1930s. But 'Mona Lisa' in 1950 sold better than anything the trio had done, and by 1951 he'd largely stepped back from the piano. Jazz critics mourned. The pop charts didn't.
In the Spotlight
In 1956, NBC gave him the first nationally broadcast variety show hosted by a Black American. Major advertisers refused to sponsor it. Max Factor told NBC that 'a negro couldn't sell lipstick.' Cole's response: 'What do they think we use? Chalk? Congo paint?' He ran the show for 64 weeks without a major sponsor, then pulled the plug himself with one of the most cutting lines in television history: 'Madison Avenue is afraid of the dark.' The NAACP's Thurgood Marshall called him an Uncle Tom for performing before segregated audiences. He managed to be too Black for white advertisers and not activist enough for civil rights leaders at the same time.
Side Notes
The pseudonyms tell you a lot about where his priorities were. During the 1940s, Capitol Records owned his voice but not his fingers, so Cole recorded jazz piano sessions under names like 'Shorty Nadine,' 'Eddie Laguna,' and 'Sam Schmaltz' to get around the exclusivity clause. The drummerless trio format was itself an accident: the scheduled drummer never showed for a 1937 gig at the Swannee Inn, and Cole liked the result better. He'd learned his style as a teenager by sneaking out his bedroom window in Chicago to catch Louis Armstrong and Earl Hines at the late-night clubs.
Final Chapter
The Broadway show Golden Boy lost Sammy Davis Jr. to the funeral. Frank Sinatra, Jack Benny, and Rosemary Clooney were among those who attended. Capitol Records received orders for over a million copies of his releases within days of his death. His final film, Cat Ballou, was released several months later.