Beverly Sills

The reason that I chose Beverly Sills is that she looked like one of the most interesting women on the sheet that we could choose from. After I started doing some research on her I found out that she doesn't just look like an interresting person, she is one.


Facts in Brief:
Full Name-Belle Miriam Silverman.
Born-May 25, 1929 in Brooklyn, New York.
Parents-Shirley and Moris Silverman.
Honors-She became a member of the New York City Opera.
Died-She's still alive but retired.



    Her mother provided her with lessons in dance, voice, and elocution. In the thirties, she performed professionally on radio. The show was called Uncle Bob's Rainbow House and she was also in the 1938 film Uncle Sol Solves It . In 1936, Beverly Sills began taking lessons with Estelle Liebling, a famous singing teacher, who encouraged her to audition on CBS' radio's Major Bowes' Amateur Hour.

    When her father died in 1949, and her mother couldn't support them so they ended up living in a one-bedroom apartment where her singing in a private club just barely supported them.

     For years Beverly Sills tried to become a member of the New York City Opera. Finally, she was hired and she made her first appearance on October 29, 1955, as Rosalinde in Johann Strauss's Die Fledermaus which wowed the newspaper critics, but that was then. Now she is a retired old woman who had a long healthy life.

Bibliography

1) Beverly Sills, http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/biography/Sills.html, Friday, March 30, 2001

2) Inspirational Quotes, http://www.unlimitedcoaching.com/html/inspirational_quotes.html,
Copyright © 2000 Unlimited Coaching Solutions. All names & logos are the property of their respective owners. All Rights Reserved.

3) Pictures!, http://sopranos.freeservers.com/sillspic.htm, Unknown, 2/4/01

4) McHenry, Robert (ed.), Sills, Beverly (biography). , Her Heritage: A Biographical Encyclopedia of Famous American Women, 12-20-1995.

5) Martin Bernheimer, Sills, Beverly. , World Book Encyclopedia, 01-01-2000.