Russell Lee Arms (February 3, 1920, Berkeley, California – February 13, 2012, Hamilton, Illinois) was an American actor andsinger.

Career

Arms began his career on radio, moving up to minor screen roles during World War II as a contract player with Warner Brothers and later as a freelance performer, mostly in Westerns. Subsequently he appeared in supporting roles in both feature films and television. He was well known for his 1957 hit single, "Cinco Robles (Five Oaks)", which entered the charts on January 12, 1957 and stayed for 15 weeks, peaking at No. 22. He released an album with Era, "Where Can A Wanderer Go", in 1957.

From 1952 to 1957, he was best known as a vocalist on Your Hit Parade, an NBC television series that reviewed the popular songs of the day and on which a regular cast of vocalists would perform the top seven songs of the week. Arms and Eileen Wilson (who starred on the show from 1950 to 1952) were the only surviving lead performers from the show until Arms' death in 2012 in Illinois. He authored an autobiography in 2005, My Hit Parade ... and a Few Misses. Arms played the defendant's friend in a Perry Mason episode called "The Case of the Credulous Quarry."

Russell Arms played the role of Chester Finley in By the Light of the Silvery Moon, as the piano instructor and hopeful suitor to Doris Day.

Military years

He was a graduate of the Signal Corps OCS program out of Ft. Monmouth, New Jersey (1941–46) and again at Ft. Monmouth (1951–53). A subsequent program was initiated during the Vietnam War (1965 to 1968) at Fort Gordon, Georgia. He graduated from OCS at Ft. Monmouth with class 40-44 on December 29, 1944. Of the original 500 plus that started with that class, only 264 were found qualified for a commission. An attrition rate of approximately 50% was "par" for the course in all of the Signal Corps OCS programs, while the combat arms OCS programs usually graduated between 75-80% of the starters.

Personal life

Arms and his second wife, wife, Mary Lynne, resided in Palm Springs, California for many years, until moving to Hamilton, Illinois, where Arms died in 2012, aged 92.

Source: Wikipedia