One of the most popular American singers in the 1920s and 1930s, Rudy Vallee became a sought-after supporting actor in Hollywood films, an important pioneer in radio variety shows, and much later a musical comedy star on Broadway.

Born Hubert Prior Vallée in Island Pond, Vermont, he was a self-taught drummer in his high school band. In 1919 he began a self-study of the clarinet and saxophone, frequently spending six to eight hours a day practicing, and within a year was performing publicly at the Strand Theater in Portland, Maine. After a year at the University of Maine, he transferred to Yale in the fall of 1922, where he earned tuition by playing his sax at country clubs and college dances. While playing with the Yale Collegians he began using a hand-held mega-phone to amplify his crooning, light-tone voice. The megaphone—similar to the ones...