Kathryn Elizabeth Smith (May 1, 1907 – June 17, 1986), known professionally as Kate Smith and The First Lady of Radio, was an American singer, a contralto, best known for her rendition of Irving Berlin's "God Bless America". 　　She had a radio, television, and recording career spanning five decades, which reached its pinnacle in the 1940s. Smith became known as The Songbird of the South after her enduring popularity during World War II and contribution to American culture and patriotism. 　　Kathryn Elizabeth Smith was born May 1, 1907, in Greenville, Virginia, and grew up in Washington, DC.Her father was a wholesale magazine distributor. As a baby, she failed to talk until she was 4 years old, but a year later, she was singing in church socials, and by the time she was 8, she was singing for the troops at Army camps in the Washington area during World War I. Alarmed by his daughter's evident penchant for the stage, William Smith made her take up nursing at George Washington University Hospital. She stuck it out a few months, quit, and got herself on the bill at Keith's Theater as a singer. 　　Heading the bill was the actor and producer Eddie Dowling, who signed up the young singer for a revue he was preparing. It was called Honeymoon Lane, and it opened in Atlantic City on August 29, 1926. A month later, it moved to Broadway. 　　An indelicate review in The New York Times on October 31, 1926, under the heading "A Sophie Tucker Rival", said: "A 19-year-old girl, weighing in the immediate neighborhood of 200 pounds, is one of the discoveries of the season for those whose interests run to syncopators and singers of what in the varieties and nightclubs are known as 'hot' songs. Kate Smith is the newcomer's not uncommon name." She was actually only 17 at the time. 　　From Honeymoon Lane, Miss Smith went into the road company of Vincent Youmans's Hit the Deck, where she won acclaim singing "Hallelujah!" Back in New York, she took the company lead in George White's Flying High, which opened at the Apollo Theater on March 3, 1930, and ran for 122 performances. As Pansy Sparks, Miss Smith's role was to be the butt of Bert Lahr's often cruel jibes about her girth. She said later that she often wept with humiliation in her dressing room after the show. 　　Smith began recording in 1926. Her professional musical career began in 1930, when she was discovered by Columbia Records artists-and-repertoire executive Ted Collins, who became her longtime manager in 50–50 partnership. She later credited Collins with helping her overcome her self-consciousness, writing, "Ted Collins was the first man who regarded me as a singer, and didn't even seem to notice that I was a big girl."She noted, "I'm big, and I sing, and boy, when I sing, I sing all over!" 　　Collins put Smith on radio in 1931. That year, she performed the controversial top-20 song of 1931, "That's Why Darkies Were Born" and "Dream a Little Dream of Me." Her biggest hits were "River, Stay 'Way From My Door" (1931), "The Woodpecker Song" (1940), "The White Cliffs of Dover" (1941), "Rose O'Day" (1941), "The Last Time I Saw Paris" (1942), "I Don't Want to Walk Without You" (1942), "There Goes That Song Again" (1944), "Seems Like Old Times" (1946), and "Now Is the Hour" (1947). "Rose O'Day" sold over one million copies, her first to achieve this feat, and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA.Her theme song was "When the Moon Comes over the Mountain"; she had helped write the lyrics. Smith greeted her audience with "Hello, everybody!" and signed off with "Thanks for listenin'." 　　In 1932, Smith appeared in Hello, Everybody!, with co-stars Randolph Scott and Sally Blane, and in the 1943 wartime film This is the Army she sang "God Bless America". 　　Radio 　　Smith was a major star of radio, usually backed by Jack Miller's Orchestra. She began with her twice-a-week NBC series, Kate Smith Sings (quickly expanded to six shows a week), followed by a series of shows for CBS: Kate Smith and Her Swanee Music (1931–33), sponsored by La Palina Cigars; The Kate Smith Matinee (1934–35); The Kate Smith New Star Revue (1934–35); Kate Smith's Coffee Time (1935–36), sponsored by A&P; and The Kate Smith A&P Bandwagon (1936–37). 　　The Kate Smith Hour was a leading radio variety show, offering comedy, music, and drama with appearances by top personalities of films and theater for eight years (1937–45). The show's resident comics, Abbott and Costello and Henny Youngman, introduced their comedy to a nationwide radio audience aboard her show, while a series of sketches based on the Broadway production of the same name led to The Aldrich Family as separate hit series in its own right in 1940. 　　Smith also made a dramatic appearance, starring in "Little Johnny Appleseed" on Silver Theater May 14, 1944. 　　Television 　　Smith starred in two concurrent television programs in the early 1950'sThe Kate Smith Hour on NBC Television from 1950 through 1954, hosting until 1953 in the late afternoon hour of 4:00 pm ET. James Dean and Audrey Hepburn made early acting appearances on the show. Smith also starred in the weekly The Kate Smith Evening Hour which included a rare American tv appearance by Josephine Baker as well as the only major filmed footage of Hank Williams. Smith continued on the Mutual Broadcasting System, CBS, ABC, and NBC, doing both music and talk shows on radio until 1960. 　　From January 25 to July 18, 1960, Smith hosted The Kate Smith Show, a variety program on the CBS Television Monday evening schedule.On October 2, 1966, Smith performed on the British television show, Sunday Night at the London Palladium. 　　Because of her popularity, her face was a common sight in print advertisements of the day. Over the years, she acted as a commercial spokeswoman for numerous companies such as Studebaker, Pullman, Diamond Crystal Salt, and Jell-O. 　　Smith's figure was not the only satire target. Her cheery radio sign-on was parodied by comedian Henry Morgan when he launched his own show in 1942: "Good evening, anybody, here's Morgan," which became his sign-on. Morgan would recall in his memoir, Here's Morgan, that Smith's sign-on struck him as condescending: "I, on the other hand, was grateful if anybody was listening."