Margaret Truman, 1953 Rigoletto

Daughter of Harry does her thang [via]

Comments

[Les Mitnick]

Margaret Truman had at best a pleasant church-lady voice. The media push to try and fit her into the mold of an opera singer was shameful and disgusting, though Miss Truman herself was far from blameless. That she landed on the cover of Time Magazine because she was a "singer" is totally beyond comprehension.

She was a wonderful woman who raised a beautiful family. She also became a prolific writer. She was a highly intelligent woman who lived her life well. Like many others, she harbored the desire to become a great singer. She just simply didn't have the goods to make this happen, but many others didn't either.

Let this lovely lady rest in peace and serenity.

[Wexell]

Thanks for the little lesson, Les Mitnick. I've never heard of her before.

[Les Mitnick]

Wexell:
Margaret Truman was the daughter of U.S. President Harry Truman and she used her name to promote her career with a voice that just wasn't of operatic quality. She studied with the legendary Helen Traubel, and Traubel warned her that her voice was not good enough for a major career. But Miss Truman was a very determined young lady, and subjected herself to critical scorn for her Town Hall recital in New York in 1950. Being the daughter of a sitting United States president at the time, she might have thought that critics would be polite. They were not.

She finally abandoned her singing ambitions and later became an extremely good writer of mysteries. She died only very recently in Chicago.