Clovis, Hall

Singer; Stokowski's next-door neighbor in Connecticut.

Biography

Hall Clovis was born in 1900 in Nebraska. He attended Grinnell College, graduating in 19xx. He studied singing with noted teacher Anna Eugenie Schoen-Rene and began his singing career in Omaha in local operetta productions. He then moved to New York singing in operetta productions and sang the lead in the premier of Ernest Trow Carter's Blonde Donna, a musical set in Santa Barbara. He also began singing with a group called the Four Bachelors, which later made several discs for Gennett Records of Richmond, Indiana.

Clovis married Eleanor Steele in 1930, the wealthy daughter of Charles Steele, a partner in the J.P. Morgan firm. He and his wife, a soprano formed the duo Clovis-Steele and performed widely in the 1930s, touring Europe several times. Clovis-Steele commissioned and sang pieces by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Darius Milhaud, H.T. Burleigh, Samuel Richards Gaines, Jeno Takacs, Fannie Charles Dillon and Katherine Ruth Heyman. Clovis and Steele moved to Santa Barbara and were later divorced. Clovis lived in Santa Barbara until his death with Charles Lee in the former Summerland home of Leopold Stokowski.