ANDY WILLIAMS IS NOT DEAD

". . . people think I'm dead since I don't appear on national TV or Las Vegas clubs anymore. ." reported by the Telegraph co..UK Photo: Getty Images

Andy Williams, 81, is alive and performing at his own club in Branson, MO. Having quit the fast lane of TV and Las Vegas he retired, then built his own club, and will keep performing until he drops, he claims.

Andy Williams had/has a brilliant career, beginning with his appearing with the quartet The Williams Brothers with his three brothers from Des Moines, IA in two-bit night clubs. After starving out in 1952, he switched to pop as a solo artist and was picked up by The Tonight Show to began regular appearances, plus a record contract.

In 1957 he recorded Butterfly followed by a string of hits, and in 1962,

his signature song, Moon River.

Here are his top 10:

[ Do you remember?]

Moon River

Days of Wine and Roses

Call Me Irresponsible

Can't Get Use to Losin' You

Oh Danny Boy

We Need a Little Christmas

Dear Heart

Warm and Willing

Hawaiian Wedding Song

Emily

Andy was a pal the Sinatra "rat pack" and spent 20 years as a Las Vegas performer.

. . . .""Vegas was run by the Mob, it was wall-to-wall gangsters," Williams recalls. "All of the people that worked there were paid a lot of money – Mafia money, but everyone was taking it. So you'd tell yourself they're not bad people, they're just rogues who dress nicely and speak nicely, and are polite as long as you don't cross them."

By the time Caesar's Palace, where Williams headlined for two decades, opened in 1966, most of the hoodlums had gone. "It was a lot of fun," he remembers. "Sammy and Dean and Frank all hung out together and often I'd go and see them after the show. You'd drink two bottles of champagne in a night, head for the sauna in the morning and sweat it out, play golf, come back and take a quick nap and go off and do shows. If you're young you can do it."

He says in the Telegraph Co. article that . . "That's the trouble with showbusiness. One minute you're the most popular singer in America with your own TV variety show, a 20-year stint in Las Vegas. . . The next thing you know, you're performing along a nondescript highway in the foothills of Missouri's Ozark mountains, competing for audiences with a Beatles tribute band, an Elvis impersonator and three of the lesser-known Osmonds".

Andy Williams has written his autobiography: "Moon River and Me". He details his life's humble beginnings, frustrations with the quartet, his life as a TV and

recording star, Caesar's Palace headliner and his new life as a Branson entertainer.

Bravo Andy Williams for contributing your unique piece of almost forgotten Americana.

With Love and Kindness,

THE HATMAN