Moon River

His Christmas specials and most popular song, Moon River, are the headline citations in remembrances of Andy Williams, who died on Tuesday.

Like Andy Griffith, Andy Williams is the second long-lived celebrity named "Andy" to leave the scene in recent months. Although both remained in the spotlight into the 21st century, their signature moments were from the black-and-white era.

The passing of Andy Williams has given us another occasion to celebrate the Sixties--not just the decade of social turmoil, war, and assassinations--but also the pre-1964 cool of JFK's Camelot-on-the-Potomac, the Rat Pack, and Mad Men.

Breakfast at Tiffany's, the 1961 movie for which Moon River was composed, had a profound influence on American fashion and catapulted Audrey Hepburn to the top rank of Hollywood stardom. Interestingly, though Moon River became identified with Andy Williams, the version that won the Academy Award was sung by the untrained voice of Audrey Hepburn.

Personal note: the Ted Sax radio show played Moon River as its introduction, so I heard it nearly every day long before I saw the movie with which it is associated. In the 1960's Ted Sax had the second most popular radio show in Hawaii, behind J. Akuhead Pupule. Ted Sax died in 2000; his son, Larry Beil, is a sports anchor on ABC7 in San Francisco.

The version of Moon River that Ted Sax used is sung by the Henry Mancini chorus:

© 2012 Stephen Yuen