Art Lund born 1 April 1913

Art Lund (April 1, 1915 in Salt Lake City, Utah – May 31, 1990 in Holladay, Utah) was an American baritone singer with rugged good looks, initially with bandleaders Benny Goodman and Harry James, and was also a television and stage actor.
 
Arthur Earl "Art" Lund  the 6-foot-4 performer, graduated from Westminster College in his native Salt Lake City and from Eastern Kentucky State Teachers' College. He also received a master's degree in aerological engineering from the United States Naval Academy in 1943. Lund was a high school math teacher in Kentucky who worked as a musician on the side. He left teaching to tour with Jimmy Ray and his band. He originally billed himself as Art London.

 He found work early on as a vocalist with a band led by clarinetist Jimmy Joy. A better-known clarinetist whom Lund would later sing with was Benny Goodman, with whom he cut several records, including “Blue Skies,” “On the Alamo,” and (in duet with Peggy Lee) “Winter Weather” and “If You Build a Better Mousetrap.” In addition to his work with the King of Swing, Lund sang and recorded with bandmaster and trumpet king Harry James.

 

                                                                                                                                                                 
He began a solo career in 1946, recording the song "Mam'selle" in 1947. This gramophone record was #1 in the U.S. Billboard magazine chart and earned a gold disc. Other hits for Lund were "(I'd Like to Get You on a) Slow Boat to China", "What'll I Do", "You Call Everybody Darlin'" and "Peg o' My Heart". He also recorded "Blue Skies", "My Blue Heaven" “Crying in the Chapel” and "Mona Lisa".

 

In 1956 Lund made his debut in a Broadway musical, creating the role of Joe in Frank Loesser’s ambitious musical The Most Happy Fella. Joe is the young, handsome, restless foreman man who works for the central character, Tony, a vineyard owner who marries a much younger woman, Rosabella. Though Joe and Tony are friends, Joe eventually sleeps with Rosabella and gets her pregnant, which leads to a turning point in the musical. Nominated for several Tonys, The Most Happy Fella is one of Loesser’s finest works, and the original cast recording was royally issued on three discs by Columbia.

 
Later Broadway credits for Lund include Destry Rides Again (1959), as a replacement for the plot's villain, Scott Brady; Donnybrook! (1961); Fiorello! (1962); and Sophie (1963). Lund also worked in two shows that closed before scheduled Broadway openings, We Take the Town (1962), as Robert Preston's standby; and Breakfast at Tiffany's (1966).
 
In the 1950s, he made several guest appearances on television shows, including “Tonight!” (the forerunner of “The Tonight Show”) and “The Bell Telephone Hour.” He also acted in numerous television shows from the 1950s to the 1980s, among them “I Love Lucy,” “Wagon Train,” “The Name of the Game,” “Gunsmoke,” “The Rockford Files,” “Kojak,” “Little House on the Prairie,” “Baretta,” “The Paper Chase,” “The Winds of War,” and “Knight Rider.” 

In addition to his work on television, Lund had parts in several films, including The Molly Maguires (1970), Black Caesar (1973), The Last American Hero (1973), Bucktown (1975), Baby Blue Marine (1976), The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover (1977) and It's Alive III: Island of the Alive (1987).
 
Lund was married nearly 30 years [1940-1969] to Kathleen Virginia Bolanz-Lund. On October 16, 1969 Kathleen Lund was killed in an automobile accident. She was a passenger in a car driven by friend and former model/actress Rosemarie Bowe (wife of actor Robert Stack), when the car veered into a culvert near Sacramento Metropolitan Airport. Lund did not remarry until the last year of his life, to Janet Burris Chytraus.
 

 
Lund was still singing the 1980s. He was a frequent guest at Big Band nights in Southern California, toured with the Harry James ghost band and  later sang in Australia. HE died May 31, 1990 of liver cancer in Holladay, Utah...not far from where he was born. He was 75.   (Compiled & edited from Wikipedia &  masterworksbroadway.com)