Who is playing in this video?

[tony-morosco]

Does anyone know who is actually playing the harp for Dorothy Collins in this clip?

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?desktop_uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DSJfFOt4gksQ&v=SJfFOt4gksQ&gl=US

[Sid Humphreys]

Tony,

the video is not comming up with that link…

[john-strand]

If you are talking about the “Secret Love” clip from the old hit parade show of 1954, a note with it says that it is probably Ruth Berman – here’s a link to the clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJfFOt4gksQ

[sherry-lenox]

That looks like a rather masculine hand doesn’t it?

Giselle MacKenzie was a pretty accomplished violinist, but I never heard of Dorothy Collins playing the harp.

[tony-morosco]

I’m 90% sure it isn’t Ruth. Ruth is very small, with small hands. Those hands look much bigger than Ruth to me.

[catherine-rogers]

Did you notice she’s sitting on the wrong side of the harp? Maybe that’s the angle the director wanted to shoot from regardless of accuracy.

[tony-morosco]

And her hand position would only come close to something correct if she had been playing on a wire strung Celtic harp. Thumbs completely down and fingers like claws. She did move in time with the music, but what she was doing would not have produced those notes. At one point she was plaing a gliss, but the harp was playing an arpeggio run.

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

It’s obviously an actress faking it. I don’t know who the real harpist is. Many students of Salzedo’s and Grandjany’s were active in those days. Pearl Chertok played for the CBS orchestra, as I recall, and Lucile Lawrence did ABC, I think, as well as the Firestone show. It was lucrative work.

[tony-morosco]

Indeed. Ruth Played for the ABC, NBC and CBS orchestras at various times. Nice work if you could get it.

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