Leonard Reed

Leonard was habitually assaulted by the guardian of the foster home and at the age of 13 was threatened with a four-year stretch in reform school for buying alcohol under-age.

He began to work for the likes of Travis Tucker in his holidays and then, at aged 18, while in New York visiting his prospective university, Cornell, entered and won a Charleston competition for whites.

In about 1930, Reed and Bryant devised a new finale for their eight-minute show, a step of simple heel-and-toe combinations danced to four eight-bar choruses, from tunes such as "Tuxedo Junction" and "Ain't What You Do".

In 1934 he and Bryant broke up, and at the age of 26 Reed became a producer, working in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York with some of the era's best-known black performers.

He is famous for having been the "white" manager at the Apollo Theatre who told Buddy Holly that the black audience would boo him off stage; they did not, they embraced his music.

The 1960s found him working for record companies, producing acts, choreographing dance numbers, and helping to launch the career of singer Dinah Washington.

At that time, he told The Sunday Oklahoman that his long, active life could be credited to "women, golf and show business ... but not necessarily in that order".

As a vocal coach, Leonard was blessed to have a student so talented that she was unopposed during the final weeks that she appeared on Star Search; this was Angela Teek, daughter of another Reed prodigy, Spanky Wilson.

At aged 97, Leonard Reed died in his sleep from congestive heart failure, in a West Covina, CA hospital on the night of Monday, April 5, 2004.