My mother, as described in my book (and as noted previously in this blog), was a featured singer on NBC-TV's Your Hit Parade, in 1951 and 1952.
During her time on the show, there were, in essence, two tiers of featured singers. There were the show’s primary vocalists, as seen in the photo below, from a 1951 TV magazine: Dorothy Collins, Snooky Lanson, and Eileen Wilson. The second tier of singers, who were featured less prominently, consisted of my mother and Russell Arms.
These two tiers were reflected in a 1952 listing in a Pittsburgh magazine, TV Digest:
Russell Arms became one of the show’s primary stars in the 1952-1953 season. The singers, that season, were Collins, Lanson, Arms and June Valli. In the fall of 1953, Valli was replaced by Gisele MacKenzie. Lanson, Collins, Arms, and MacKenzie remained with the TV program until 1957, and became the group of singers most associated with the show.
