Tony Travis—nee Travis Richard Kleefeld—was born March 4, 1926 in New York, but moved to Los Angeles with his family when he was ten. There, he attended the Beverly Hills High School, where he showed an innate aptitude for music. He began playing drums, but switched to tuba and trumpet when he joined the school band. After graduation he decided to pursue another one of his passions and joined the Pasadena Playhouse. At the end of his first year, after having appeared in a few school productions, he signed a contract with M-G-M, but his budding career was interrupted by a two-and-a-half-year hitch in the Navy.

After discharge, he went straight to playing the youthful romantic lead in one of the “Cisco Kid” movie series starring Gilbert Roland, which didn’t turn into anything, so in 1948 he decided to go into the real estate business with his father, with whom he opened the Kleefeld & Son Construction company, located in Rancho Mirage, CA. He was never really satisfied with a desk job though, and soon he developed an interest in singing. The natural, relaxed reading, and candid directness with which Tony approached a song, paired with his open, self-confident vitality, athletic build and good looks, made his friends urge him to try singing as a career.

So in April 1954 he made a record demonstration of Limehouse Blues and asked his friend Dinah Shore for her professional opinion. She liked it and quickly decided to introduce him as a guest on her radio and television shows. By summer, Joe Carlton—a&r at RCA Victor—had signed Dinah’s discovery with a term contract as a single artist for the label’s pop roster. The twenty-eight year old building contractor made his first recording debut on the label via It’s Easier Said than Done, with Harry Geller conducting. His Sinatra-ish reading, soon attracted deejays all over the country. Kathy Keating, former promoter for Coral Records, was then pushing Tony’s single in all radios.

Soon, in July, he was asked to perform in two big “Hit Parties” in Southern and Northern California, organized by the California Music Merchant’s Association, and in August he had a guest appearance at the Hollywood show Art Lin kletter’s “House Party.”

In October 1954, RCA Victor picked up its option on the singer, who immediately recorded four sides in New York, again with Harry Geller’s orchestra. In January 1955 he traveled to Hollywood for recording sessions with Hugo Winterhalter. Soon, Tony’s singles inspired fan clubs to pop up in celebration across the country. He signed a management contract with the Nat Goldstone agency. The name of Tony Travis began appearing on music trade paper polls as a man to be listened to. That year he performed some in of the best spots in a national promotional tour, and he made several TV appearances, notably Gary Crosby’s show on CBS. With Harold Mooney and his Orchestra, he recorded Our Town the Jimmy Van Heusen-Sammy Cahn song from the popular NBC-television show of the same name.

In November he was heralded as the fourth “Most promising male vocalist” on the 1955 Billboard Disk Jockey Poll, behind Pat Boone, Bob Manning and Nick Noble, but ahead of Jerry Vale, Ralph Young, Sammy Davis Jr., Al Hibbler, Charles Applewhite and Steve Lawrence. In 1956 he recorded various RCA Victor singles with the orchestras of Henri René, and Buddy Bregman, as well as the excellent 12-inch LP album “I See Your Face Before Me,” with Dennis Farnon arranging and conducting.

In April 1957, arranger and bandleader Buddy Bregman—by then in his role as artist and repertoire topper for Verve Records—signed Tony to the firm’s growing talent roster. His popularity as a singer earned him a small role in the 1957 film “Jamboree,” featuring such rock and roll stars as Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins, as well as blues singer Joe Williams and the Count Basie Band. After his role, Travis recorded some rock and roll sides for the label, and early in 1958 a 12-inch LP album titled “Come Swing with Me,” with an all-star orchestra arranged and conducted by Russell Garcia—a title that Capitol Records later used also to name the popular Sinatra album.

These two excellent and very much swinging albums for RCA Victor and Verve show Travis at his honest, agreeable best, with rock-solid, graceful orchestral backings by Dennis Farnon and Russell Garcia. In both albums the orchestras featured some of the best Hollywood studio and jazz musicians, such as guitarist Howard Roberts, pianist Johnny Williams, trumpeter Don Fagerquist, flutist and alto saxophonist Paul Horn, among other outstanding soloists.

After 1958 Tony focused more on his career as an actor—although he was still singing on screen, he never recorded again. “To tell the truth,” he said in 1959, “I didn’t make a dime my first two years in show business, but lately it’s being going pretty well.” In October he co-starred with June Ericson in “Bells Are Ringing,” at the Los Angeles Fred Miller theater. By then Tony was earning as much as he did as a builder (a job that he had left two years earlier) and was enjoying artistic success. He appeared on several TV shows produced between 1956 and 1961, including M Squad and Perry Mason, but he is especially remembered for his lead role in “The Beatniks,” a 1960 crime film in the teensploitation genre directed by Paul Frees, which had a cult following on the Mystery Science Theater show.

It didn’t take long for Tony to disappear both from the big and small screens, and although his star faded, he continued to sing into his 80s. Throughout his life, he dated briefly with such actresses as Jane Wyman (1952), Joan Tyler (1953), Sheila Connolly (1953), Mona Freeman (1953), Elaine Stewart (1954), and Cleo Moore (1954-58), as well as with a 24 year old girl named Judith Campbell (1958-59), later became notorious for being JFK’s mistress. Tony Travis spent his last years living in  a retirement community in Pasadena, where he died in May 24, 2018. He was buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, Los Angeles County.

—Jordi Pujol (From the inside liner notes of FSRV 205)