Lanny Ross was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 singer, pianist and songwriter.

Biography

Lancelot Patrick Ross was born in Seattle, Washington

Seattle, Washington

Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...

. He graduated from Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 in 1928, where he was a member of Zeta Psi

Zeta Psi

The Zeta Psi Fraternity of North America was founded June 1, 1847 as a social college fraternity. The organization now comprises about fifty active chapters and twenty-five inactive chapters, encompassing roughly fifty thousand brothers, and is a founding member of the North-American...

 and Skull and Bones

Skull and Bones

Skull and Bones is an undergraduate senior or secret society at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. It is a traditional peer society to Scroll and Key and Wolf's Head, as the three senior class 'landed societies' at Yale....

. He later studied classical vocal technique at the Juilliard School of Music with Anna E. Schoen-René. His career began in radio in 1928 and included a five year run with Annette Hanshaw

Annette Hanshaw

Catherine Annette Hanshaw was born at her parents' residence in New York City on October 18, 1901. [Ed. While Annette sometimes gave her birth date as 1910, nephew Frank W. Hanshaw III confirms 1901 as the date on Annette's birth certificate.]-Biography:...

 on the Maxwell House Show Boat ‎ program. His recording career began in 1929. Ross went on to success in vaudeville, night clubs and films. He served in the U.S. Army in World War II, achieving the rank of Major. During the war, he was called upon to sing the Oscar-nominated ballad, "We Musn't Say Goodbye," for the 1943 motion picture, "Stage Door Canteen." The film also received an Oscar nomination for best musical score that year.

Ross introduced the standard popular song "Stay as Sweet as You Are" (w. Mack Gordon

Mack Gordon

Mack Gordon was an American composer and lyricist of songs for the stage and film. He was nominated for the best original song Oscar nine times, including six consecutive years between 1940 and 1945, and won the award once, for "You'll Never Know"...

 m. Harry Revel

Harry Revel

Harry Revel was an English composer of musical theatre.Revel was born in London. Before emigrating to the United States in 1929, he wrote musicals for productions in Paris, Copenhagen, Vienna and London....

) in the 1934 film College Rhythm. He recorded the song with Nat W. Finston and the Paramount Recording Orchestra in Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 on October 21, 1934. It was released on Brunswick 7318 (matrix LA-247-A) and became Ross' most successful record.

He co-wrote the song "Listen to My Heart" with Al J. Neiburg

Al J. Neiburg

Allen J. Neiburg was an American lyricist. He was born on 22 November 1902 in St. Albans, Vermont and received his education at Boston University. He is known for writing lyrics for such songs as "I'm Confessin' " , "It's the Talk of the Town" and "Under a Blanket of Blue"...

 and Abner Silver

Abner Silver

Abner Silver was an American songwriter who worked primarily during the Tin Pan Alley era of the craft. He was born on December 28, 1899, in New York....

. It was performed in the 1939 short film Tempo of Tomorrow by Patricia Gilmore singing with the Richard Himber

Richard Himber

Richard Himber was an American bandleader, composer, violinist, magician and practical joker.-Early life:He was born as Herbert Richard Imber in Newark, New Jersey to the owner of a chain of meat stores...

 Orchestra.

Ross died in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

.

Film credits

• 1933 Yours Sincerely
• 1934 Melody in Spring
• 1934 College Rhythm
• 1938 The Lady Objects
• 1939 Gulliver's Travels
  Gulliver's Travels (1939 film)
  Gulliver's Travels is a 1939 American cel-animated Technicolor feature film, directed by Dave Fleischer and produced by Max Fleischer for Fleischer Studios. The film was released on Friday, December 22, 1939 by Paramount Pictures, who had the feature produced as an answer to the success of Walt...
  
  animated feature film for which Lanny Ross provided the singing voice for the character Prince David.