SCHÖNER GIGOLO, ARMER GIGOLO
Latest update on 12/09/2013Artist: Kurt Mühlhardt
Author: Leonello Casucci/Julius Brammer
Label: Odéon
Year: 1929
With Dajos Bela's Orch. More versions from '29: Paul Godwin Tanz Orchester (vocal: Leo Monosson), Marek Weber Orchester, Comedian Harmonists (in a medley) and Heinz Maria Linz (on box set Als der Schlager laufen lernte). Probably inspired by Austrian film Seine Hoheit, der Eintänzer (1927). During the Weimar years the word gigolo wasn't yet synonymous with call boy. That film's about the decline of upper class Austria following WW I, personified by an ex husar remembering the days he could parade his nice uniforms around, now surviving as a lonely private dance partner, his only way left to keep up any appearance. "Uniform passé, Liebchen sagt adieu". This widespread Sehnsucht slowly formed the breeding ground for a new German Master of War.
Covers:
- 1929:
Richard Tauber [also with Dajos Bela's Orch.]
- 1929:
Alfred Strauss [idem]
- 1930:
Alfred Hause [also from Austria]
- 1930:
Damia [French translation]
- 1930:
Jack Hylton [as Handsome Gigolo (Just A Gigolo); hit UK]
- 1930:
Irene Bordoni [first English version as Just A Gigolo]
- 1930:
Louis Armstrong [idem]
- 1931:
Ted Lewis [idem; n°1 US]
- 1931:
Bing Crosby [his first hit]
- 1931:
Leo Reisman [hit US]
- 1935:
Ben Bernie [n°3 US]
- 1953:
- 1956:
Louis Prima [in medley with I Ain't Got Nobody]
- 1973:
Marlène Dietrich [in film Just A Gigolo with David Bowie]
- 1979:
- 1981:
Carlos [als Je suis un rigolo]
- 1985:
- 1987:
- 1994:
Palast Orchester [in film Der Bewegte Mann]
- 1995:
André Hazes [as Ja, Dat Is Zijn Leven]
- 2002:
- 2006:
Helmut Lotti [all as Just A Gigolo]
