Leon Ames and the Father's Song in Meet Me in St. Louis

It has been reported in many books and articles of the M-G-M musicals of the 1930s, 40s, and 50s that Ames couldn't sing and that the filmmakers approached the film's producer, Arthur Freed, to sing the father's part in the song "You and I." The source for this claim is the memory of people who worked on the film who recounted it to writers. (Freed's participation is not in the credits). 

The story about Freed dubbing Ames has been well reported, and it may be true. But Hollywood people sometimes made stories up or embellished them over the years of telling and retelling. The film director Rauol Walsh wrote in his autobiography how, when the great Shakespearean actor and film star John Barrymore died in 1942, they played a joke on his friend, the actor Errol Flynn. They bribed the owner of the funeral home where Barrymore's body was waked and brought the body to Flynn's house where they positioned it in a chair. Flynn came home, saw the body, and ran out screaming. Flynn told the same story in his autobiography. However ghoulish, it has the style of a tale told over drinks. Walsh even added in his account that when they returned the body to the funeral home, the owner asked where they had taken it, and Walsh said to Errol Flynn's house. According to Walsh the owner said, "I wish you'd told me, I would have put him in a better suit." And yet, Gene Fowler Jr., son of Gene Fowler, a journalist, Barrymore's first biographer, and his best friend. Fowler Jr. told a Barrymore biographer that the Walsh story didn't happen because his father and he had kept an all-night vigil at the funeral home.

As for the Freed-Ames story, it may have happened. But it didn't seem right to me because the voice sounds like Ames' speaking voice. Of course, a good dubber is supposed to sound like the actor he is dubbing. But then Freed wasn't an experienced dubber. He was a lyricist and a producer, and the dubbing of Ames was reportedly his only dubbing. If it is him, he was very good at it and a quick study.

My suspicions were further raised when I heard Freed sing in a 1929 M-G-M short titled Song Writers' Revue in which he essays one of his own compositions "Wedding of the Painted Dolls." (Some of his singing in this short is captured in a documentary on Freed ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzDthWuZr84 7.10 minutes in). Freed's voice in that short is that of a tenor and has little resonance. The voice of a singer in Meet Me in St. Louis is that of a baritone and is deep and rich. It's true that Freed's voice could have lowered and grown deeper and richer in 15 years. But it's not likely.

For Ames' part, he seldom sang in films. The same can be said of experienced singers who just weren't given the opportunity to sing in films. Dana Andrews, for example, made a career of playing tough police detectives. When he was cast in the 1945 musical State Fair, they dubbed him, not knowing that he had trained as an opera singer. What we have of Ames is his crooning a few bars of "Oh Susannah" in the 1939 film Marshall of Mesa City, his joining in with Elizabeth Taylor and Robert Stack in a phrase of "It's a Most Unusual Day" in the finale of the 1948 film Date with Judy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hqm1mPrrh8, one minute in), and his singing a bit at the piano with Frances Farmer in the 1958 television play Tongues of Angels ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hqm1mPrrh8 , 6:22 minutes in).. The latter evokes the scene in St. Louis where the father and mother sing at the piano. Margaret O'Brien, who co-stars in Tongues of Angels, was also in St. Louis. Ames is mostly kidding around in the television play, singing high and low, but most of his singing is clearly that of a baritone. And he was a trained stage actor with a deep and resonant speaking voice.

The father's singing voice in St. Louis could still be Freed, just older and lower . Or it could be Ames. Or Ames mixed with Freed or another singer with a lower or richer voice, a technique the sound engineers sometimes employed. Or it could be this anonymous singer.

Just saying.