Artie Shaw, the clarinetist and bandleader whose recording of Begin The Beguineepitomised the Big Band era, has died.
Shaw (94), had been in poor health for some time and apparently died of natural causes at his California home, his lawyer and long-time friend Eddie Ezor said.
At his peak in the 1930s and 40s, Shaw pulled in a five-figure weekly salary and ranked with Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller as the bandleaders who made music swing.
Bandleader Artie Shaw with his bride, actress Ava Gardner
But he left the music world largely behind in the mid-50s and spent much of the second half of his life devoted to writing and other pursuits.
Shaw was born Arthur Arshawsky on May 23rd, 1910, in New York City, of immigrant parents who struggled to earn a living in the clothing business. He began his professional career while still in his teens, first playing saxophone, then switching to clarinet to take advantage of a job opportunity.
By the time he was in his early 20s, he was a highly-paid member of a CBS radio orchestra. After the first of his many retirements from the music business, he returned to New York and began assembling his first orchestra.
His band's recording of Cole Porter's Begin The Beguinewas intended to be the B-side of the record. Instead, it became a huge hit, topping the charts for six weeks in 1938 and making Shaw famous at 28.
He had six wives, including actresses Lana Turner (wife No 3, 1940), Ava Gardner (No 5, 1945), Evelyn Keyes (No 8, 1957) and novelist Kathleen Winsor, author of the 1944 best-seller Forever Amber (No 6, 1946).
Shaw hated the loss of privacy that stardom brought, had little use for signing autographs and once caused an uproar by calling jitterbugging fans "morons". He later said he was just referring to the rowdy ones.
"I could never understand why people wanted to dance to my music," he once said. "I made it good enough to listen to."
He retired from performing several times - finally putting down his clarinet for good in the mid-1950s. "I did all you can do with a clarinet," he said. "Any more would have been less."
After that, he lived in Spain for a time, operated a farm, and turned to literature full time.