Son of the broadcaster Stan Lee Broza, Lawrence led his first dance band at age 20, but he played swing at the time its heyday was coming to a close.

In 1927, they created and produced the Horn and Hardart Children's Hour, which ran on WCAU radio from 1927 to 1958 and concurrently on television from 1948 to 1958.

Celebrities who appeared on the show as children include Eddie Fisher, Frankie Avalon, Joey Bishop, Bernadette Peters and best selling author Jacqueline Susann.

The idea for the Children's Hour came to Stan Lee when a new shopping mall in Philadelphia was looking to sponsor a show on the radio.

While looking for sponsors, one of Stan Lee's first customers was William Paley, who bought advertising time on WCAU for his father's cigar shop.

During his junior year his band, now named The Elliot Broza Orchestra, began playing college proms around Pennsylvania.

At Penn, he majored in symphonic conducting under Harl McDonald, who offered him a position as assistant conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra upon graduation.

Listen to Lawrence was nationally broadcast on CBS radio in 1945 shortly after a rave review in the March 1945 issue of Metronome magazine by George T. Simon.

The Elliot Lawrence Band performed in Philadelphia at the World Series in 1950, playing his original song "The Fightin' Phils."

Among his many television credits, Elliot was the musical director and conductor for every Tony Award telecast from 1965 (its first year on television) to 2011, and other big gala shows like Night of the 100 Stars 1 (1982) 1 and 2 (1985), the Bicentennial Celebration for the Statue of Liberty (1986 at Giants Stadium) and The Kennedy Center Honors (from 2000 to 2006).