[1] He learned piano as a child and put together a band called the Blue Blazers while a student at Pasadena High School.
He matriculated at Pasadena City College and led a larger band on campus, but after two years of study, he won a singing contest at Los Angeles's Cocoanut Grove Ballroom and quit school.
His first engagement was at Frank Dailey's Meadowbrook in New Jersey and was an immediate success; he later played the Arcadia Ballroom in Philadelphia and other venues in the eastern United States.
Later that year, he was offered the position of host on a television show broadcast by Los Angeles station KTLA.
Soon after the run of this show he made several uncredited appearances in Hollywood films, including as a bandleader in White Christmas.