Jimmy Boyd

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For the actor from The Electric Company, see Jim Boyd (actor).

Jimmy Boyd (born January 9, 1939) is an American singer, musician, and actor.

Jimmy Boyd was born in an old farmhouse in McComb, Mississippi. In 1941 his father, Leslie Boyd, put his wife, Winnie, and their two sons (Kenneth, 4, and Jimmy, 2), on a train bound for Riverside, California. Having sold everything they owned, and only having enough money for his wife’s ticket and the two boys, Leslie rode the rails. He hitchhiked on freight trains to join his family in California, something he had done growing up through the Depression. Hoboing from Mississippi, Louisiana and as far as West Texas, he picked cotton to help support his own family of 21 brothers and sisters. The family was sent back to Mississippi a year earlier by the Welfare Department for not having any skills to get a good job.

Leslie had been a farmer when a drought hit and there were no more crops, so he picked cotton. He could pick over 500 pounds of cotton a day himself, and was paid 25 cents. Although there was no cotton in California to pick, this time they were determined to stay. Leslie got a menial job cleaning up construction sites. But soon became an accomplished finish carpenter.

Leslie and Winnie occasionally took the kids with them to a Country-and-Western dance, held in a barn in Colton, California, a few miles from Riverside. Jimmy's older brother Kenneth, about 9 years old at the time, went up to the bandstand and told the band leader he should hear his little brother sing and play the guitar. Texas Jim Lewis, the band leader, called little Jimmy up to the stage. Jimmy sang and played, and the crowd went wild.

After the dance was over, Texas Jim Lewis and the manager of a local radio station approached Jimmy’s parents and asked if he could come sing every Saturday night, and be a part of the hour-long radio show they planned to broadcast from the dance. They offered to pay Jimmy $50 for every show. $50 was a lot of money for the Boyds, but Jimmy enjoyed performing and would have done it for nothing.

Leslie Boyd had cataracts in both eyes and had to have surgery. Cataract surgery in the 1940s was a serious operation, and it had to be done in Los Angeles. While in LA, they were told about auditions being held for the Al Jarvis Talent Show on KLAC-TV.

Jimmy auditioned for Al Jarvis and was such a hit that they put him on the show that night. Jimmy, to his astonishment, won the talent show, and the next day, Al Jarvis and KLAC were literally deluged in upwards of 20,000 telegrams and telephone calls from viewers.

Al Jarvis had a five-hour talk show every day on KLAC-TV with a few regulars on it, including Betty White, called Make-Believe Ballroom. Jarvis immediately announced Jimmy would be a regular on the show. Several appearances singing and doing comedy skits on the Frank Sinatra Show on CBS soon followed, then Columbia Records and the song “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus," recorded when he was 12 years and 11 months old.

Even in those days of limited media compared to today, it became a record industry phenomenon selling over two and a half million records in its first months release. Columbia Record execs were baffled. They had already presented Jimmy with two gold records.(In the days before Grammys, Gold Records were the Grammys, and they were actually real gold).

Jimmy loved and owned horses, so Columbia Records presented him with a a silver mounted saddle. Inscribed in the silver plate on the back of the saddle were the words, "Presented by Columbia Records to Jimmy Boyd commemorating his 3,000,000 record of "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus".

"I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" went on to sell again and again every Christmas. Today with the internet it sells to new generations and has reportedly sold over 60,000,000 records since its initial release.

Between February 1953 and November 1954, Boyd made five appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show. In the same year and the years that followed he made multi appearances on, The Perry Como Show, Doris Day Show, Bing Crosby Show. Bob Hope, Patti Page, Dave Garroway, Merv Griffin, The Tonight Show, Kraft Summer Music Hall, Shindig, American Bandstand. Boyd would record several number-one records: teaming up with Frankie Laine on "Tell Me a Story" and with Rosemary Clooney on "Dennis the Menace." In the mid 70's he had a top 5 record produced by Leon Russell and Snuffy Garrett. Boyd showed he had comedic talents in TV series including Bachelor Father, Date with the Angels, Betty White Show, Broadside, My Three Sons, and others. He also appeared in a number of motion pictures, including 1960's Inherit the Wind with Spencer Tracy.

Jimmy was the youngest entertainer ever allowed to appear in Las Vegas. Starring at the famed Sands Hotel "Copa Room" at age thirteen in the famous Sands Hotel "Rat Pack" era. And the Golden Hotel in Reno Nevada. He played the theater circuit for several years that was popular at that time. The Capital, Paramount, and Seville theaters in New York City, Chicago, Hartford, Montreal and Toronto. Following entertainers such as Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Peggy Lee, Frankie Laine, Johnny Ray, and Eddie Fisher with his own show. He performed at 90,000 seat plus concerts, Soldiers Field, Rubber Bowl, The Plantation, Red Rocks and others, in Chicago, Ohio, Colorado, Hawaii and Canada. Along with hundreds of one nighters on the road. Throughout the U.S. Canada and England.

A seasoned performer at fourteen he took time off to return to Hollywood to star in a Race Horse movie called "Racing Blood" for 20th Century Fox. Jimmy found Hollywood was far less grueling than the road. At sixteen years old he returned to Hollywood again to appear in "The Second Greatest Sex" with Jeanne Craine, George Nader, and Burt Lahr for Universal Pictures. Then on to New York to do a musical version of "Tom Sawyer" for United States Steel Hour on CBS with Florence Henderson as Becky. And the next year was asked back to do the title role in the U.S. Steel Hour's musical version of "Huckleberry Finn". Co-starring with Basil Rathbone, and Jack Carson as the carpetbaggers.

Not wanting to go on the road again, and enjoying doing TV and movies Jimmy hung up his guitar at least temporarily and started having fun as a regular on comedy shows like "Date With The Angels", The Betty White Show on ABC, "Bachelor Father" with John Forsythe, Broadside and others. He starred on Broadway in Neil Simon's play Star Spangled Girl with George Hamilton and Deana Martin.

In 1960 Boyd married actress Yvonne Craig (TV's Batgirl). After a year of marriage Jimmy was sent to Texas to do his then mandatory stint in the Armed Forces. The marriage ended in divorce in 1962.

Jimmy first went to Vietnam with his own show for the USO in 1965. In February 1967 he took part in Nancy Sinatra's USO tour of Vietnam. When asked "what's the most exciting thing that ever happened to you"? His reply, "My son Devon!"

For his contributions to the recording industry, Jimmy Boyd has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7021 Hollywood Blvd.