Please note the obituary shown in the photo section. (click on "see 3 more") There is a lot of conflicting information about Miss Toni Fisher. As such, it is difficult to determine what is correct and what is not.
Toni's birth name was Marion Colleen Nolan per California birth records and the record of her marriage to Henry Monzello. The 1930 census for Royal C. and Violet Nolan shows a five year old girl named Dollie.
There is no record that Miss Toni ever married Wayne Shanklin. However, there are some vague reports that Mr. Shanklin may have had numerous common law relationships.
Regarding the other last names as shown on the obituary, I welcome further information.
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The musical career of Miss Toni Fisher (as she was always billed) did not take off until 1959, when she was twenty-eight. In 1949 she played a small, uncredited part in the musical "Make Believe Ballroom", a film starring Nat King Cole, Frankie Laine, Kay Starr, Jimmy Dorsey and Gene Krupa (all in cameo roles), among others. In the early fifties she married composer / arranger /producer Wayne Shanklin (1916-1970), who would write most of her material, including her two hits.
In 1959, Toni's husband Wayne Shanklin started his own label, Signet Records, in Hollywood. He had written a song called "The Big Hurt" that he thought would be a perfect musical vehicle for his wife, who had been on the nightclub scene in Los Angeles as a vocalist for some five years. "The Big Hurt" went all the way to # 3 on the Billboard pop charts the last week of 1959. This gave Toni the chance to appear on the shows of Dick Clark and Ed Sullivan."The Big Hurt' recording was a first for it's innovative use of electronic phasing effects, increasing studio experimentation which increasingly characterized popular music in the decade to follow. Toni Fisher subsequently enjoyed two more hits -- a rendition of the Irving Berlin song "How Deep Is the Ocean" and the 1962 Top 40 entry "West of the Wall," a one-of-a-kind ode to love and freedom inspired by the Berlin Wall -- before receding from the limelight.
Her last recordings were made for Capitol in 1967. She spent the rest of the sixties doing club dates and retired from the music scene after the death of her husband in 1970. Toni Fisher died of a heart attack February 12, 1999 at the age of 67 in Hyrum, Utah.
Toni's birth name was Marion Colleen Nolan per California birth records and the record of her marriage to Henry Monzello. The 1930 census for Royal C. and Violet Nolan shows a five year old girl named Dollie.
There is no record that Miss Toni ever married Wayne Shanklin. However, there are some vague reports that Mr. Shanklin may have had numerous common law relationships.
Regarding the other last names as shown on the obituary, I welcome further information.
--
The musical career of Miss Toni Fisher (as she was always billed) did not take off until 1959, when she was twenty-eight. In 1949 she played a small, uncredited part in the musical "Make Believe Ballroom", a film starring Nat King Cole, Frankie Laine, Kay Starr, Jimmy Dorsey and Gene Krupa (all in cameo roles), among others. In the early fifties she married composer / arranger /producer Wayne Shanklin (1916-1970), who would write most of her material, including her two hits.
In 1959, Toni's husband Wayne Shanklin started his own label, Signet Records, in Hollywood. He had written a song called "The Big Hurt" that he thought would be a perfect musical vehicle for his wife, who had been on the nightclub scene in Los Angeles as a vocalist for some five years. "The Big Hurt" went all the way to # 3 on the Billboard pop charts the last week of 1959. This gave Toni the chance to appear on the shows of Dick Clark and Ed Sullivan."The Big Hurt' recording was a first for it's innovative use of electronic phasing effects, increasing studio experimentation which increasingly characterized popular music in the decade to follow. Toni Fisher subsequently enjoyed two more hits -- a rendition of the Irving Berlin song "How Deep Is the Ocean" and the 1962 Top 40 entry "West of the Wall," a one-of-a-kind ode to love and freedom inspired by the Berlin Wall -- before receding from the limelight.
Her last recordings were made for Capitol in 1967. She spent the rest of the sixties doing club dates and retired from the music scene after the death of her husband in 1970. Toni Fisher died of a heart attack February 12, 1999 at the age of 67 in Hyrum, Utah.
Please note the obituary shown in the photo section. (click on "see 3 more") There is a lot of conflicting information about Miss Toni Fisher. As such, it is difficult to determine what is correct and what is not.
Toni's birth name was Marion Colleen Nolan per California birth records and the record of her marriage to Henry Monzello. The 1930 census for Royal C. and Violet Nolan shows a five year old girl named Dollie.
There is no record that Miss Toni ever married Wayne Shanklin. However, there are some vague reports that Mr. Shanklin may have had numerous common law relationships.
Regarding the other last names as shown on the obituary, I welcome further information.
--
The musical career of Miss Toni Fisher (as she was always billed) did not take off until 1959, when she was twenty-eight. In 1949 she played a small, uncredited part in the musical "Make Believe Ballroom", a film starring Nat King Cole, Frankie Laine, Kay Starr, Jimmy Dorsey and Gene Krupa (all in cameo roles), among others. In the early fifties she married composer / arranger /producer Wayne Shanklin (1916-1970), who would write most of her material, including her two hits.
In 1959, Toni's husband Wayne Shanklin started his own label, Signet Records, in Hollywood. He had written a song called "The Big Hurt" that he thought would be a perfect musical vehicle for his wife, who had been on the nightclub scene in Los Angeles as a vocalist for some five years. "The Big Hurt" went all the way to # 3 on the Billboard pop charts the last week of 1959. This gave Toni the chance to appear on the shows of Dick Clark and Ed Sullivan."The Big Hurt' recording was a first for it's innovative use of electronic phasing effects, increasing studio experimentation which increasingly characterized popular music in the decade to follow. Toni Fisher subsequently enjoyed two more hits -- a rendition of the Irving Berlin song "How Deep Is the Ocean" and the 1962 Top 40 entry "West of the Wall," a one-of-a-kind ode to love and freedom inspired by the Berlin Wall -- before receding from the limelight.
Her last recordings were made for Capitol in 1967. She spent the rest of the sixties doing club dates and retired from the music scene after the death of her husband in 1970. Toni Fisher died of a heart attack February 12, 1999 at the age of 67 in Hyrum, Utah.
Toni's birth name was Marion Colleen Nolan per California birth records and the record of her marriage to Henry Monzello. The 1930 census for Royal C. and Violet Nolan shows a five year old girl named Dollie.
There is no record that Miss Toni ever married Wayne Shanklin. However, there are some vague reports that Mr. Shanklin may have had numerous common law relationships.
Regarding the other last names as shown on the obituary, I welcome further information.
--
The musical career of Miss Toni Fisher (as she was always billed) did not take off until 1959, when she was twenty-eight. In 1949 she played a small, uncredited part in the musical "Make Believe Ballroom", a film starring Nat King Cole, Frankie Laine, Kay Starr, Jimmy Dorsey and Gene Krupa (all in cameo roles), among others. In the early fifties she married composer / arranger /producer Wayne Shanklin (1916-1970), who would write most of her material, including her two hits.
In 1959, Toni's husband Wayne Shanklin started his own label, Signet Records, in Hollywood. He had written a song called "The Big Hurt" that he thought would be a perfect musical vehicle for his wife, who had been on the nightclub scene in Los Angeles as a vocalist for some five years. "The Big Hurt" went all the way to # 3 on the Billboard pop charts the last week of 1959. This gave Toni the chance to appear on the shows of Dick Clark and Ed Sullivan."The Big Hurt' recording was a first for it's innovative use of electronic phasing effects, increasing studio experimentation which increasingly characterized popular music in the decade to follow. Toni Fisher subsequently enjoyed two more hits -- a rendition of the Irving Berlin song "How Deep Is the Ocean" and the 1962 Top 40 entry "West of the Wall," a one-of-a-kind ode to love and freedom inspired by the Berlin Wall -- before receding from the limelight.
Her last recordings were made for Capitol in 1967. She spent the rest of the sixties doing club dates and retired from the music scene after the death of her husband in 1970. Toni Fisher died of a heart attack February 12, 1999 at the age of 67 in Hyrum, Utah.
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