How many stars from the Lawrence Welk show are connected to the global family tree?

Question

Many of the longtime favorite singers, dancers and actors on the Lawrence Welk show, included Lawrence Welk himself, have passed to glory. How many have we profiled on wikitree?

Comments

Siblings added - spouse added - 1 child entered - 2 more to go

Found an interesting site that helped clear up a few items about his family too.

http://www.bigbandlibrary.com/lawrencewelk.html

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Larry Jr added and his wife, Tanya Falan

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Falappino-1

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And you are correct, Sharon. Sandi Jensen is from a Mormon family and has a well-documented tree. I added a couple of paternals to her line to get things started.

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Jensen-5607

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Thanks, Scott. It would be fun to see how Annette Funicello connects to the tree too. We used to invite all these entertainers into our living room in 16 inch black and white back in the 1950s! It will be fun to see who they really were.

Bobby Burgess married Myron Florin's daughter. Myron has passed away now. Mary Lou Metzger married the bass player. There were several cast marriages. Singer Jim Turner married the girl who sang the country songs. Guy was married to Ralda? but they divorced and he married Cissy. We might end up with a hundred people to profile just with Lawrence Welk and his cast and band. Who were the Samanski sisters? Lawrence Welk was on TV from 1955 to 1982 plus a lot of specials afterwards PBS once or twice a week. Over 60 years on TV!

If we get started on the Mouseketeers, that would probably be a large group too. Disney had so many stars back in the 60s.  I remember Hailey Mills especially, but there were many others. They did a lot of G rated feature films that kids loved.

Sharon

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I just added a profile for Norma Zimmer:

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Zimmer-903

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It looks like Norma Zimmer was born Norma Larsen, and that Zimmer was a married name or a stage name:

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Larsen-3168

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OK. Sandi's profile will be connected to the global tree after the links update tonight. She has ties to a Jepson, which made it easy to do the connection.

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Sandi Jensen Griffith is a great one to connect to because she likely has a large well connected tree. Maybe her tree is on familysearch.org wiki. But maybe we can get her well connected here too. Don't know if she is related to any other Welk stars tho. Can't remember if she married anyone in the band.

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Nope.  That's not all of them.  There were five.  Janet, Diane, Barbara, Kathy, Peggy.  All together, there were 11 children, 5 boys, 6 girls.  5 girls sang, four at a time as a group.  If one was sick or quit, another would fill in.  I think Peggy was the fill in and Barbara was the one that eventually quit.  Not positive though

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Guy Hovis did not marry Cissy. His second wife was Sara Lundy in 2002.  I don't think Cissy King ever married

Answer 1

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Starkey-506 Ringo Star of The Beatles.

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Presley-155 Elvis Aaron Presley.

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Sarkisian-2 Cher (Sarkisian) Bono.

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Deutschendorf-8 Henry John (Deutschendorf) Denver Jr.

Comments

Were any of these celebrities on Lawrence Wekl??? I remember Bobby and Cissy, Author Duncan, Mary Lou Metzger who married the bass  player, George Cates who led the band, Sandy and Gail who sang with Mary Lou, Bob Ralston and JoAnn Castle who played the piano. Kathy Sullivan was  another singer, and Bob Dido. There were so many regulars!

Sharon

Answer 2

Thanks Scott for all your hard work! Here is a Project I just set up for Lawrence Welk and his  performers to help organize our search. Please let me know if you think we need a template or a category and what it should be.

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Lawrence_Welk_Show_Project

Thanks!

Sharon Centanne

Comments

I bet most of the Hotsy Totsy Boys, which was Welk's early band, are deceased. Should we focus on deceased stars or are living cast members  famous enough to publish their profiles as Open?

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The band members should be included too.

Henry Cuesta died of cancer in 2003.I just added his profile. I think he is Hispsnic?

Sharon

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I googled Lawrence Welk band members and found out about a few more performers.

Joe Finney died of Emphysema in 2008.. He had a lot of kids.

Larry Hooper died of Kidney failure in 1983.

George Cates died of heart failure in 2005.

Bob Lido died in 2000 of a stroke.

Myron Floren died in 2005 of cancer

But they still entertain me every Saturday night! More tomorrow when I get on the big computer and can add sources.

Sharon

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I added profiles for Joe Feeney and Bob Lido this morning. T here seems to be more information available for Joe Feeney than there is for Bob Lido.

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I went back to the project page and captured the profiles that were created through this thread, and then scoured the wikipedia for additional profiles yet to be created. I captured as many as I could to the bottom of the project page so that those who might want to assist can go to that page and select someone off the list. Hope that makes it easier for everyone to contribute.

And I found the wikipedia page for Cubby - not sure if he's on WikiTree yet.

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Thanks, Scott! That's wunnerful! :)