So I'm a sucker for baritones: Dick Haymes

I remember falling in love with this sweetie when I was but a starry-eyed 14-year-old watching State Fair on television. Ah! Young love!

Dick Haymes (September 13, 1918 – March 28, 1980) was an actor and one of the most popular male vocalists of the 1940s and early 1950s.

He was born Richard Benjamin Haymes in Buenos Aires, Argentina. His Irish-born mother, Marguerite Haymes (1894-1987), was a well-known vocal coach and instructor. He became the vocalist in a number of big bands, worked in Hollywood on radio and in many films throughout the 1940s and 1950s.

He never became a United States citizen and avoided military service during World War II by asserting his non-belligerent status as a citizen of Argentina, which was neutral. In 1955, this act of his nearly caused his deportation to Argentina on an unrelated technicality in immigration law. During World War II, he was briefly detained at Ellis Island.

Haymes was married six times and had six children. His more notable marriages were to film actresses Joanne Dru (1941-1949), Rita Hayworth (1953-1955) and Fran Jeffries (1958-1964). His daughter Stephanie Haymes was married to Sir Elton John's lyricist Bernie Taupin

He died in Los Angeles from lung cancer, at the age of 63.

Information Source: Wikipedia