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Lou Rawls
Age: 72 (passed away Jan. 6th, 2006)
Height: 5' 10"
Birth Place: Chicago, Illinois, USA
Born: Dec. 1st, 1933
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Lou Rawls' Main TV Roles
NOTE: Complete List of Works can be found at
IMDB
BIOGRAPHY: Rawls was born on 1st December 1933 in Chicago, Illinois. His father abandoned his family and Lou was raised by his grandmother. His first meeting with music was when he was seven years old, in a Baptist church choir. He was mostly influenced by the Chicago Regal theatre where he had the opportunity to see the best in black entertainment. Billy Eckstine and Arthur Prysock were only two of the best that Lou saw. He and classmate, Sam Cooke, would harmonize in the school lavatory. He graduated from Dunbar Tech. School and joined the touring gospel singing group, the Pilgrim Travelers. He left the group in 1956 and joined the US Army and became a Sergeant with the Screaming Eagle Paratroopers. In 1958, he was involved in a serious auto accident that killed one and Rawls was pronounced dead on on the way to the hospital. Lou remained in a coma for over five days and suffered a memory loss for several months. Sam Cooke was also in the automobile and was left uninjured. Rawls was first noticed by Capitol Records producer Nick Benet after noticing his four active range while performing at a Pandora's Los Angeles coffee shop. He went on to perform at a number of LA clubs and later made his debut at the Hollywood Bowl in 1959 with Dick Clark (I). He went solo in 1964 and has won four Grammys. In the mid 70s, he joined the Anheuser Busch Brewery as a corporate spokesman. Since 1980, he has presented a series of world wide concerts for American military bases that were co-sponsored by Anheuser Busch, the USO, and the US Dept. Of Defense. During Christmas of 1983, he toured US bases in the Phillipines, Korea and Japan. He has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for black colleges and, every year, he sponsors a celebrity golf tournament in LA to raise money for the United Negro College Fund. South Wentworth Street in Chicago was renamed Lou Rawls Drive in his honor. The talented Rawls is also the singing voice of the animated fickle feline "Garfield".
TRIVIA:
- Went to high school with 'Sam Cooke' (qv).
- Graduate of Dunbar High School in Chicago.
- On 19 October, 2005, while listening to an Akron, Ohio radio morning program ("Matt Patrick and Angela In the Morning" on WKDD), Lou and Nina Rawls heard about a local woman who was about to lose her home after coping with medical bills for her special needs son left her in arrears on her mortgage. The couple immediately telephoned the radio station to donate whatever amount of money it took to bring the woman's mortgage to "Current" status.
- Despite having absolutely nothing to do with the film itself, he appeared on the DVD commentary track for the film _Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)_ (qv).
- Has a four-octave range.
- A paratrooper in the Army's 101st Airborne Division (1955 - 1958)
- He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Recording at 6931 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.
- His telethon, which served as a fundraiser for the United Negro College and other black colleges, has raised more than $200 million since 1979. More than 10,000 scholarships have been provided.
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