Warfield, William C (32550394)

William C Warfield
Personal details
Birth name	William Caesar Warfield
Born	22 January 1920 West Helena, Arkansas
Died	25 August 2002 Chicago, Illinois
Nativity	United States
Military service
Allegiance	United States
Branch	United States Army
ASN	32550394
Enlisted	Rochester, New York

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William Caesar Warfield (January 22, 1920 – August 25, 2002) was an American concert bass-baritone, known for his appearances in stage productions, Hollywood films, and television programs. A prominent African American artist during the Civil Rights era, he worked with many notable artists, represented the United States during foreign tours, taught at academic institutions, and earned numerous accolades, including a Grammy Award in 1984.

Biography

Warfield was born in West Helena, Arkansas, the oldest of five sons of a Baptist minister.

Army in November 1942 during World War II, Warfield, a senior at the Eastman School of Music, presented his graduation recital before an overflow audience at Kilbourn Hall, Eastman Theater on November 18. After earning his bachelor's degree in 1942 and serving in the military, he returned to the Eastman School to complete a master's degree in 1946. In 1969 he participated in an oratorio in Riverside Park with youth from the New York All-City High School Chorus as a public service.

The William Warfield Scholarship Fund was formed in 1977 to support young African American classical singers at the Eastman School of Music. In 1994, he moved to Northwestern University's School of Music, where he stayed until his death. He attended his graduation ceremony the following May in military uniform.

That same year he accepted an appointment as Professor of Music at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

William Caesar Warfield (January 22, 1920 – August 25, 2002) was an American concert bass-baritone, known for his appearances in stage productions, Hollywood films, and television programs. In those years, when he sang "Ol' Man River", he would not perform it with the original lyrics, but with the altered ones that Paul Robeson used in his recitals beginning in 1938. He was discharged from the Army, where he had served in military intelligence, in 1946.

He appeared in two Hollywood films, including a star-making performance as Joe in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's 1951 Technicolor remake of Show Boat. He made an appearance on The Colgate Comedy Hour and on a program called TV Recital Hall in 1951, the same year that he made his screen debut in Show Boat. He sang the premiere performances of the version for soloist and orchestra of Set I of Aaron Copland's Old American Songs in 1955, and of the version for soloist and piano of Set II of the collection in 1958.

He later appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1955. (He also recorded both sets of the songs.) His vocal talents were also featured on two recordings of Handel's "Messiah" – a classic, but heavily cut, performance by the Philadelphia Orchestra under the direction of Eugene Ormandy (released in 1959), and a lesser-known, drastically restructured recording made in 1956, also heavily cut, with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic. In 1961, he appeared as a recital soloist on an episode of the Young People's Concerts, conducted by Leonard Bernstein.

Beginning in 1962, Warfield began to have trouble with his voice, a situation he described in his autobiography. But were featured together in a 1963 studio recording of excerpts from Porgy and Bess. Warfield played his Show Boat role in two other productions of the musical – the 1966 Lincoln Center production, and a 1972 production in Vienna.

By 1966 his voice had deepened from bass-baritone to a full-fledged bass, and he could not sing the climactic high note on Ol' Man River as easily as he had in the 1951 film version. In 1975, William was a soloist with the Naumburg Orchestral Concerts, in the Naumburg Bandshell, Central Park, in the summer series. By 1976, Warfield, although still making various stage and television appearances, was not singing as much as he had in the past.

In the summer of 1976, he reprised his role as Porgy in a Lake George Opera Festival production of Porgy and Bess. In March 1984 he was the winner of a Grammy Award in the "Spoken Word" category for his outstanding narration of Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait, accompanied by the Eastman Philharmonia [1]. His other film was called Old Explorers (1990), starring James Whitmore and José Ferrer.

In 1999, Warfield joined baritones Robert Sims and Benjamin Matthews in a trio by the name of "Three Generations". Managed by Arthur White, this ensemble toured the United States giving full concerts of African-American spirituals and folk songs until Warfield's death in 2002. According to a recent exhibit about WWII, Warfield was one of less than one hundred African American members of the Ritchie Boys, thousands of soldiers who were trained at Fort Ritchie, Maryland.

It was an intelligence center where hundreds of Jewish recruits who fled Nazi Germany for the United States were trained to interrogate their one-time countrymen. According to the exhibit at the Zekelman Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, Michigan, Warfield was brought to the camp because of his strong German skills which he perfected while studying music. Because of segregation, his skills were never put to use.

According to Warfield, upon induction into the Army he was initially assigned to the ordnance department to be a truck driver, but after he objected, citing his language skills, he was assigned to Ft. Ritchie, where he was in charge of stage shows and spoke fluently with German, Italian and French soldiers in their native languages. Later that year he was cast in the road show tour of Call Me Mister.

According to Warfield, that road show cast included William Marshall, Carl Reiner, Buddy Hackett and Bob Fosse. Over the next three years he also appeared in "Set My People Free" and the opera Regina, while also studying with and Otto Herz of the veteran's training program of the American Theatre Wing. His dear friend and colleague Marian Anderson invited the youth to her home in Connecticut afterwards.

Warfield accompanied the youth; it was the same weekend as the Woodstock Festival that some of the youth’s friends went to instead. He later became Chairman of the Voice Department. Bernstein combined the Christmas and Resurrection sections and ended with the arias and choruses depicting the death of Jesus.

The Ormandy recording featured the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and Bernstein's the Westminster Choir. Warfield was also accomplished in acting and poetry recitation. He played the character "The Lord" in a celebrated Hallmark Hall of Fame television production of "The Green Pastures", a role he played twice on live TV (both versions survive as kinescopes).

In a nod to Show Boat, Warfield played a cameo role as a tugboat captain. Footage of Warfield in Show Boat has been included in several TV shows and/or films, notably That's Entertainment!. And in the 1990s, he narrated a special jazz arrangement of music from Show Boat, on the PRI program Riverwalk Jazz.

To compensate he had to sing even more expressively than he had before. He served as narrator in various orchestral works, such as Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait, and occasionally performed sprechstimme roles in works by Arnold Schoenberg. Despite his issues, he did sing on occasion during his final years, despite the fact that by then his singing voice was practically gone.

His nephew, Thomas Warfield, has presided over the fund. Recipients include Claron McFadden and Nicole Cabell.

He sang "Ol' Man River" in three different record albums of the show – the 1951 motion picture soundtrack album on MGM Records, a 1962 studio album featuring Barbara Cook and John Raitt on Columbia Masterworks, and the RCA Victor album made from the Lincoln Center production. A prominent African American artist during the Civil Rights era, he worked with many notable artists, represented the United States during foreign tours, taught at academic institutions, and earned numerous accolades, including a Grammy Award in 1984. Warfield died in Chicago in August 2002, following treatment at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, succumbing to neck injuries he sustained from a fall a month prior.

Research notes

• See Selling; p.149
• Entertainment Director
• Bass-baritone; "Porgy and Bess"
• Portrait and summary from Notable Ritchie Boys slides ( )

Gallery

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Technical record

Field	Imported value
Approx Age at Death	82
Nara ASN	32550394
Nara Name	WARFIELD WILLIAM C
Nara State	23
Nara County	55
Nara POE	2378
Nara DOE	171142
Nara Grade Alpha	PVT
Nara Grade Code	8
Nara Branch Alpha	BI
Nara Branch Code	0
Branch	Branch Immaterial - Warrant Officers, USA
Nara Term or Enlistment	5
Term of enlistment	Enlistment for the duration of the War or other emergency, plus six months, subject to the discretion of the President or otherwise according to law
Defer. Date	0
Nara Source	0
Nara Nativity	87
Nativity.1	ARKANSAS
Nara Year of Birth	20
Nara Race	2
Nara Race Description	Negro citizen
Nara Education	6
Nara Civilian Occupation	24
Nara Marital Status	6
Nara Height (inches)	71
Nara Weight (lbs)	251
row_source	demographics
Census_HISTID	825BD8B3-016E-4758-B431-B8C49C004478
Census_State	NEW YORK
Census_Relate	Child
Census_Sex	Male
Census_Age	20
Census_BirthYear	1920
Census_Marital	Never married/single
Census_Race	Black/African American
Census_BPL	ARKANSAS
Census_MBPL	0
Census_FBPL	0
Census_Educ	1 year of college
Census_OCC	995

Timeline

• Born 2 January 1920 in Arkansas.

Sources

• Wikipedia: William Warfield
• Camp Ritchie Museum, Inc. (The Ritchie History Museum), Classes 1–31 roster data
• Dan Gross research spreadsheets, including original Excel timeline/roster work, combined with other research and records
• NARA World War II Army enlistment records (where a NARA ASN is present)
• 1940 U.S. Census (where a census match is present)
• Dan Gross, Timeline of William C Warfield for Camp Ritchie (private research document; 1 source documents reviewed)
• Dan Gross, Timeline of Warfield, William C for Camp Ritchie (private research files; selected non-private narrative findings; 1 source files: WILLIAM WARFIELD.doc)