He continued to write songs until the last ten months of his life, when he developed lung cancer. After his life was dramatized in a television special in the late 1950s, he resumed nightclub appearances. In 1939 he began working with Billy Wehle in a musical-comedy tent show that spent the winter in Gainesville and opened in 1940 during the Circus Roundup of the Gainesville Community Circus.Īustin was a nightclub entertainer in the 1930s, but then his career waned. Over the years he was also featured on numerous radio programs.
Other hit songs Austin introduced were "My Melancholy Baby," "Girl of My Dreams," "Ramona," "Carolina Moon," and "Sleepy Time Gal." His compositions included "How Come You Do Me Like You Do?" and "Lonesome Road." In the 1930s Austin debuted in the movies, which included Sadie McKee (1934) and Gift of Gab (1934). His RCA Victor recordings sold a total of more than 86 million copies one of the recordings, "My Blue Heaven" (recorded in1927), sold over 12 million records.Īustin started his recording career in 1923, and the next year Jimmy McHugh produced his first hit song, "When My Sugar Walks Down the Street," with lyrics by Austin and Irving Mills. He was one of the original crooners, and his tenor voice was well-known in the early days of radio and on the hand-cranked phonographs of the 1920s and 1930s. Though he composed more than 100 songs, Austin never learned to read music. He studied both dentistry and law in Baltimore, but decided on a singing career. He grew up in small towns in Louisiana, joined the United States Army when he was fifteen, participated in the expedition sent to capture Francisco (Pancho) Villa in 1916, and served in France during World War I. Eugene took the surname of his stepfather. His parents divorced, and his mother married Jim Austin, a blacksmith. He was the son of Nova Lucas and Serena Belle (Harrell) Lucas. Gene Austin, singer and composer, was born Eugene Lucas on June 24, 1900, in Gainesville, Texas.
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