The Beat O' My Heart: Lee Sims and wife Ilomay Bailey, 1934

As an interpreter of popular songs, Lee Sims (1898-1966) was among the best-known American pianists of the 1920s. He appeared on radio, phonograph records and piano rolls with frequency. His published arrangements sold well in the music stores. Before the term cocktail piano was popular, Lee Sims popularized a style consisting of easy-flowing melodies, relaxed tempos, sophisticated (and sometimes distorted) modulations and never a heavy or percussive touch. Sims and Eddy Duchin played the way many amateurs dreamed of playing, for their own enjoyment. After singing with the orchestras and Paul Ash and Ben Pollack (with whom she made one recording), Ilomay Bailey approached Mr. Sims about lessons. They formed a musical partnership as well as a marriage that lasted until his death in 1966. Sims and his wife headlined in theatres and on radio. They replaced Eddie Cantor as hosts of the Chase & Sanborn Hour. With a striking resemblance to Norma Shearer, she was frequently listed as one of the best-dressed women in the entertainment industry, and she was seen in glamorous magazines endorsing beauty products. Mrs. Sims style might be called over the top today, as she seems to infuse her performance with drama unworthy of the song, which Harold Spina and Johnny Burke wrote in 1934 expressly for Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra. A few months after this film short was made, the same film studio in Brooklyn starred Bailey & Sims in another short entitled Mr. and Mrs. Melody. One of their stage shows featured music from opera as well as Broadway and Tin Pan Alley, which allowed Mrs. Sims to show her vocal versatility. When the Hollywood studios beckoned Ilomay Bailey, she decided she would be nothing without her other half, and she turned them down. In England, the couple was the toast of the town for a year during which time they appeared on stage, radio, and Sims composed the score for the film Dinner At The Ritz. In 1938 Sims performed his own composition Blythewood with the London Symphony Orchestra. Not since George Gershwin (who died in 1937) had the London Symphony featured an American concert piece. The Sims pair played theatres and clubs all over the U.S., with long stays in Chicago (Chez Paree).