| Fats Waller -
(Thomas Wright Waller)
was born in May 1904 in
Greenwich Village, New
York. The seventh
of eleven children born
to Edward and Adeline
Waller. Edward was the
pastor of the Abyssinian
Baptist church in
Harlem. |
| Inspired by hearing
Paderewsky at Carnegie
Hall, he later studied
classical piano under
Carl Bohm and Leopold
Godowsky. |
| Two marriages (Edith
and Anita), three sons
(Thomas Jr, Maurice and
Ronald). |
| 360 songs, 400
recordings and three
movies. |
| Started by playing
the pipe organ at the
Lincoln Theatre at the
age of twelve. |
|
Admired
Longfellow, Bach,
Lincoln and Franklin D
Roosevelt |
|
Five feet eleven inches
tall weighing 285 lbs
would often eat up to12
hot dogs and consume 2-3
bottles of 'liquid ham
and eggs' per day |
|
Fats was a womanising larger than life
character who 'lived
life to the full' while
eating and drinking to excess. |
|
Died at 5.00am on the
15th December 1943 in
his compartment on the
'Santa Fe Chief' when
the train was just
pulling into Kansas
City. |
|
|
