Beverly Sills: America's Own Opera Star

By Mona Kerby

By the time she was four, Beverly, or “Bubbles” was performing in public. She learned to sing opera by imitating her mother’s records. When her soon to be voice teacher heard Bubbles sing, she laughed out loud. But the teacher agreed to take Bubbles, and the rest is history. At a time when virtually all major opera singers were

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kerby, Ramona
• Release date: Feb 19, 2020
• ISBN: 9781732044821

Mona Kerby

Mona Kerby writes award-winning fiction, nonfiction, and picture books for children. She is a college professor and has been a kindergarten teacher and an elementary school librarian. She has received the Texas Library Association Siddie Joe Johnson Award for outstanding achievement in children’s library service, the Outstanding Teacher Award at Little Elementary School, and the Outstanding Teacher Award at McDaniel College in Maryland where she holds the L. Stanley Bowlsbey Endowed Chair in Education and Graduate and Professional Studies. Her 38 Weeks Till Summer Vacation won the Minnesota Maud Hart Lovelace Award and was nominated to the master lists of the South Dakota Prairie Pasque Award and the Wyoming Indian Paintbrush Award. She has written biographies on Frederick Douglass, Amelia Earhart, Samuel Morse, and Beverly Sills. Her books Asthma and Cockroaches were named Outstanding Trade Books for Students in K-12 in Science. Owney, the Mail-Pouch Pooch won the California Young Readers Award and the Vermont Red Clover Award; was nominated to five state reading award lists in Kansas, Missouri, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Tennessee; was named to the Bank Street College Best Children’s Books of the Year List; and received the Parents’ Choice Silver Honor Award. See www.monakerby.com for more information.

Book preview

BEVERLY SILLS

America’s Own Opera Star

by

Mona Kerby

– MK Publications –

By the time she was four, Beverly, or Bubbles was performing in public. She sang by imitating her mother’s opera recordings. When her soon to be voice teacher heard Bubbles sing, the teacher laughed out loud. But she agreed to take Bubbles, and the rest is history. At a time when virtually all major opera singers were European, Bubbles became internationally famous because of her spectacular soprano voice and her sparkling and bubbly personality.

BEVERLY SILLS, AMERICA’S OWN OPERA STAR

Copyright © 1989 by Mona Kerby

Revised and updated 2017

ISBN 978-0-9993790-4-2

Originally published by Viking Kestrel in New York

ISBN 0-670-82251-5

PUBLISHED BY:

MK Publications

Westminster, Maryland

Cover and interior photos: beverlysillsonline.com

Beverly Sills at 8 photo: youtube.com/watch?v=ZKmW_rIixH8

Cover: Elizabeth Beeton

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owners and the above publisher of this book.

eab:20171215

For the Bendel-Simso Family

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 – Wait for the Ding Dong!

Chapter 2 – Elephants in the Mail

Chapter 3 – Stinking Smut

Chapter 4 – 52 Round-Trip Tickets

Chapter 5 – Cleopatra or Quit

Chapter 6 – Eating Peanut Clusters

Chapter 7 – I’ve Done that Already

About this Book

About the Author

Chapter 1:

Wait for the Ding Dong!

Bubbles stood before the microphone and looked at the studio audience. She was on the radio. She wasn’t afraid. Uncle Bob Emory was standing next to her. Besides, she loved to sing.

And she knew she was good. Last year in Brooklyn, New York, she had been declared Miss Beautiful Baby of 1932.

Now she was four years old. Her blond curls bobbed around her face while she sang her last year’s winning talent entry, The Wedding of Jack and Jill.

The catchy tune ended with the words ding, dong, ding.

Before she had even come to the end of her song, the audience broke out in applause. Wait a minute! she shrieked at them, I haven’t finished my ding dong!

As the curly-haired baby grew older, she stopped yelling at her audience, of course. But forty years later, her fans were still clapping and cheering for their beloved Bubbles.

Belle Miriam Silverman received her nickname at birth. She was born on May 26, 1929, with an enormous bubble of spit in her mouth. The doctor looked at her and said, We have to call her Bubbles.

And so they did. In a way, it was a perfect name for her.