Tony Martin ’30

Tony Martin (born Alvin Morris) was an actor and pop singer who was married to dancer/actress Cyd Charisse for sixty years. His first band, “The Red Peppers,” was formed while he was at Tech.

After graduating in 1930, he studied at St. Mary’s College and then went on to Hollywood. Martin is best remembered for hit films including Follow the Fleet (1936), The Holy Terror (1937), and Till the Clouds Roll By (1946.)

Among his hit songs are “Kiss Of Fire,” “I Get Ideas,” “Some Day,” “Fools Rush In,” and “There’s No Tomorrow.” He has four stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, for recording, motion pictures, radio, and television. He turned his skills to the new medium of television and from 1954-56 was a host of a weekly variety series on NBC. In the years that followed, he was a guest on talk shows hosted by everyone from Johnny Carson to Dinah Shore to Merv Griffin.

He died in 2012, at the age of 98, four years after Charisse passed away.