Jimmy Dean

Jimmy Dean

Jimmy Dean is an American singer, actor and businessman from Plainview, Texas. Born Jimmy Ray Dean, he grows up in the Seth Ward district of Plainview. After serving in the U.S. Air Force in the late 1940s, he begins a career as a professional entertainer.

Broadcasting and early career

Dean becomes the host of the Washington, D.C. television programme Town and Country Time, performing with his band the Texas Wildcats. The show helps make him a regional favourite. He also moves to New York in the 1950s, where he hosts another CBS television variety programme, and in 1959 he becomes the regular host of a CBS morning programme. In the early 1960s he also appears as an occasional host of The Tonight Show.

Recording career

Dean’s first hit is “Bummin’ Around”, issued in 1953 on the 4-Star label and reaching the country Top 5. By 1958 he records for Columbia, where he has a pop hit with the Christmas novelty number “Little Sandy Sleightfoot”. He becomes best known internationally for “Big Bad John”, recorded in Nashville in 1961, which reaches No. 1 on the Billboard chart, crosses over as a pop hit in the UK, and wins the Grammy Award for Best Country & Western Recording in 1962.

He has several further charting records, including “PT-109”, which reaches the Top 10 in 1962, and “Dear Ivan”, which he writes himself and which reaches No. 9 on the country chart and also crosses into the Top 20. In 1962 he also has a double-sided hit with the recitation “To A Sleeping Beauty” and “The Cajun Queen”, both of which reflect the style associated with “Big Bad John”.

Television and other work

Dean’s mid-1960s ABC variety show presents country performers such as Roger Miller, George Jones, Charlie Rich, Buck Owens and Joe Maphis to network television audiences. The programme also features regular sketches with Rowlf the Dog, one of Jim Henson’s long-running Muppet characters. It also includes many guests outside country music.

When the show ends, Dean turns increasingly to acting in the late 1960s. His best-known film role is millionaire Willard Whyte in the 1971 James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever. He also continues to perform around the United States.

Influence and associations

Dean helps launch the careers of Patsy Cline and Roy Clark. Cline and Dean are friends during the run of Town and Country Time, and Dean later fires Clark, who is then his lead guitarist, for chronic tardiness. He also introduces Clark to a wider audience during one of his The Tonight Show appearances.

Later references and legacy

Dean is mentioned in Madonna’s “Vogue” and in Def Leppard’s 2006 song “Rock On”. He dies in 2010 at his home near Richmond, Virginia, after a lengthy illness.