Kathryn Elizabeth Smith (1907-1986) was born in Virginia and became known as ‘the Songbird of the South’. Her wholly untrained voice spanned two and a half octaves.
After singing as an amateur from the age of eight, Smith found professional engagements, leading to performing in a Broadway show in 1926. Her weight led to her being represented as a rival to Sophie Tucker.
Smith was the original Pansy Sparks in Flying High on Broadway, and the butt of cruel jokes by Bert Lahr. The MGM adaptation replaced her with Charlotte Greenwood, her physical opposite.
She was a recording artist and, from 1931, appeared regularly on the radio, becoming a major star. She co-wrote her radio theme song, ‘When the Moon Comes Over the Mountain’, with Howard Johnson and Harry M Woods, and it was parodied by Jimmy Hollywood of the Three Radio Rogues in Going Hollywood.
During the Second World War, Smith became closely associated with Irving Berlin’s ‘God Bless America’ and, bizarrely, became involved in campaigning on moral grounds against Billy Wilder’s adaptation of Double Indemnity (1944). Her last recorded appearance was in Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-in in 1968.
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