Cynthia Strother, One-Half of the Singing Bell Sisters, Dies at 88

Cynthia Strother, the vocalist and songwriter that teamed with her more youthful sibling Kay as The Bell Sisters, a prominent teen act that discovered over night success in the 1950s with their really initial tune, “Bermuda,” has actually passed away. She was 88.

Strother passed away Friday of cardiac arrest at a hospice center in Las Las vega, her nephew Rex Strother informed The Hollywood Press reporter.

The Bell Sisters, that videotaped for RCA from 1951-55, carried out commonly on radio reveals organized by the suches as of Bing Crosby and Bob Hope and on such tv programs as The Johnny Carson Program, The Colgate Funny Hour and The Mickey Computer Mouse Club.

Both additionally showed up in the 1953 big-screen musicals Cruisin’ Down the River, starring Penis Haymes, and Those Redheads From Seattle, starring Rhonda Fleming.

The eldest of 7 youngsters– their daddy, Genetics, was an electrical expert for an aeronautics business– Cynthia Sue Strother was born upon Oct. 4, 1935, in Harlan Region, Kentucky, and elevated with her household in Seal Coastline, The Golden State.

She composed “Bermuda” in 1951 at the piano when she was 16 and still participating in Huntington Senior high school and Kay was 11.

“I like Spanish music best and was beating out Spanish tempo on the piano,” she informed Newsweek in 1952. “I just got the idea and went through with it, until it was finished. Then we all got together to write the words. We got Indian ideas and a Spanish bullfighter idea. Then somebody said, ‘Bermuda,’ and we liked that.”

Embracing their mommy Edith’s first name of Bell for their act, the women carried out in October 1951 on a regional KNXT-TV program called “Peter Potter’s Search for a Song.” One of the courts of the night’s amateur make-ups was a songs author, that promptly identified the song’s capacity.

The women were hurried right into a Hollywood workshop to trial the tune for band leader Henri Rene, the West Shore A&R male for RCA-Victor, and “Bermuda” was swiftly launched in March 1952, ultimately climbing to No. 7 on the Signboard songs graph. It would certainly market greater than 1 million duplicates.

“I tried not to influence their natural style in any way,” Rene informed Downbeat publication.“I told them to sing just the way they sing for fun around the house. If they go over as big as we think they will, it will be due to the freshness and simplicity of their manner.”

Enjoy the sisters carry out “Bermuda” on The Dinah Coast Program right here.

The sisters additionally had hits with “Wheel of Fortune,” that made it to No. 10, and “Hambone,” which was videotaped with actor-singer Phil Harris and charted as high as No. 19.

They would certainly open up for Nat King Cole in Los Angeles, carry out around the nation and also excursion Korea with various other Hollywood entertainers and the USO– all when institution had not been in session, of training course.

In Paramount’s Those Redheads From Seattle, the women sang “Take Back Your Gold,” and Cynthia represented the enjoy rate of interest of Individual Mitchell’s personality.

“I was playing a nurse, and he was supposed to come in where I was rolling bandages and we had some dialogue and then we were supposed to kiss. Well, even though I was 17, I don’t think I’d ever kissed a boy before, and what’s more, there was talk his wife was going to be on the set,” she remembered in a blog post on The Bell Sisters’ internet site.

“I mean, it was bad enough we never had any acting lessons — Kay and I were just winging it, basically. I was so flustered because I had to kiss Guy and I had no experience, and his wife was going to be watching. Well, it must have really showed in the footage, because after all the worry and embarrassment of getting through it, they didn’t even use the scene in the movie.”

The sisters were outstanding acapella vocalists and invited at army health centers and bases, where they often needed to carry out without a band.

“Bermuda” remained to create nobilities for Cynthia over the years, with her tune listened to in Allison Anders’ Elegance of My Heart (1996 ).

After she left movie industry, she showed swimming to disabled kids and grownups.

Along with Kay, survivors include her various other sisters, Sharon, Judy, Paula and Alice; her boys, Seth, Kristoffer and Keven; and various grandchildren. Her partner, Seth, whom she wed in 1957, passed away in 2006; her sibling, Rex, passed away in 2019; and her child, Anastasia, passed away in 2022.