Sophie Tucker Artistfacts

January 13, 1887 - February 9, 1966
She was born Sonya Kalish to a Russian-Jewish family from Tulchyn, Podolia Governorate, Russian Empire. (It is now Vinnytsia Oblast, in the Ukraine) Sophie arrived in the United States at the age of three months.
The Jewish family were en route to America, fleeing Russian persecution when Sophie entered this world. Tucker later wrote in her autobiography that she was born not on a vaudeville circuit, but the road between Russia and United States.
One of her most famous songs was " My Yiddishe Momme". She performed it in large American cities where there were large Jewish audiences.
Her signature song was "Some Of These Days." Tucker laid down the first of her several versions of it in 1911, one of ten that she recorded on wax cylinders for the Edison Company, for a fee of $1,000.

The most successful version of the song was one where she was backed by Ted Lewis and his band in 1926. It stayed in the #1 position on the charts for five weeks and earned her a gold disc.

Tucker titled her 1945 autobiography "Some Of These Days."
When The Beatles played " Till There Was You" at the Royal Command Performance of 1963. Paul McCartney introduced the song as previously being performed "by our favorite American group, Sophie Tucker."
Sophie Tucker greeted George V of the United Kingdom, in her 1934 Royal Command performance, by saying: "Hiya King!"
She was so famous that when in 1962 Americans were asked what they thought on hearing the name Sophie, 95 per cent answered "Tucker."
Tucker died of lung cancer and kidney failure on February 9, 1966. It was said she smoked so much that a friend's parrot would cough every time her name was mentioned.

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