Celebrity Deathwatch: 'Tex' Beneke, leader of Glenn Miller Orchestra, 86

["Deathwatch Central" <cdw@slick.org>]

http://www.cnn.com/2000/SHOWBIZ/Music/05/30/obit.beneke.ap/index.html

'Tex' Beneke, leader of Glenn Miller Orchestra, dies at 86

May 30, 2000
Web posted at: 7:41 PM EDT (2341 GMT)

SANTA ANA, California (AP) -- Gordon "Tex" Beneke, who took over the Glenn
Miller Orchestra after the band leader's death during World War II, died
Tuesday at his home in Santa Ana, California, the Orange County coroner's
office said. He was 86.

Beneke, whose cause of death was not immediately released, joined the
orchestra in 1938 as a saxophonist and singer.

His sunny Southern voice helped make hits of Miller's "Chattanooga Choo
Choo, "I Got a Girl in Kalamazoo" and "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree."

When Miller broke up the band in 1942 to join the military, Beneke played
with other bands before joining the Navy during World War II. Although he
played in the U.S. Navy Band, he never played in Miller's Air Force
orchestra.

Miller disappeared in December 1944 after taking off for a flight from
England to France in a plane that was never seen again.

In 1946, Miller's widow asked Beneke to take the Glenn Miller Orchestra back
out on the road. Under Beneke's direction, the band flourished.

"With Miller a fallen hero," Leo Walker once wrote, "demand for the Miller
sound was bigger than ever, and the band played to capacity audiences
everywhere."

Copyright 2000 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may
not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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