Famous People From Florida: Pat Boone

Charles Eugene (Pat) Boone (born June 1, 1934) is an American singer, actor and writer who was a successful pop singer in the United States during the 1950s and early 1960s.

Born in Jacksonville, Florida, Boone was reared primarily in Nashville, Tennessee, a place he still visits. His family moved to Nashville from Florida when Boone was two years old. He attended and graduated from David Lipscomb High School in Nashville in 1952. Boone grew up as a Christian in the Church of Christ. His younger brother, Nick, was also a pop singer in the 1950s, and is now a church music leader.

The handprints of Pat Boone in front of The Great Movie Ride at Walt Disney World‘s Disney’s Hollywood Studios theme park.

Boone has claimed to be a direct descendant of the American pioneer Daniel Boone. He is also a cousin of two stars of western television series: the late Richard Boone of CBS‘s Have Gun, Will Travel andRandy Boone, one of the co-stars of NBC‘s The Virginian and CBS’s Cimarron Strip.

In college, he primarily attended David Lipscomb College, later Lipscomb University, in Nashville. He graduated from Columbia University School of General Studies magna cum laude in 1958 and also attended North Texas State University, now known as the University of North Texas. During his college career, he was a member of Kappa Alpha Order.^{[citation needed]}

He covered black artists’ songs (when part of the country was segregated) and sold more copies than his black counterparts. He sold over 45 million albums, had 38 Top 40 hits and appeared in more than 12 Hollywood movies. Boone’s talent as a singer and actor, combined with his old-fashioned values, contributed to his popularity in the early rock and roll era. He continues to perform, and speak as a motivational speaker, a television personality, a conservative political commentator and a preacher.

According to Billboard, Boone was the second biggest charting artist of the late 1950s, behind only Elvis Presley but ahead of Ricky Nelson and The Platters, and was ranked at No. 9—behind The Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney but ahead of artists such as Aretha Franklin and The Beach Boys—in its listing of the Top 100 Top 40 Artists 1955-1995. Boone still holds the Billboard record for spending 220 consecutive weeks on the charts with more than one song.

At the age of twenty-three, he began hosting a half-hour ABC variety television series, The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom, which aired for 115 episodes (1957–1960). Many musical performers, including Edie Adams, Andy Williams, Pearl Bailey and Johnny Mathis made appearances on the show. His cover versions of rhythm and blues hits had a noticeable effect on the development of the broad popularity of rock and roll. During his tours in the 1950s, Elvis Presley was one of his opening acts.^[2]

As a prolific author, Boone had a No. 1 bestseller in the 1950s (Twixt Twelve and Twenty, Prentice-Hall). In the 1960s, he focused on gospel music and is a member of the Gospel Music Hall of Fame.

Boone wrote Questions About God with reporter, Cord Cooper. He told The 700 Club in 2009, “The big question is there a God? Is God real? How do we know? Is there proof? So this fella, Cord Cooper, and I decided we needed to answer three basic questions in a very simple form, but I think substantively and really bares no rational refutation… We quote Einstein and Stephen Hawking, who is still living, the most brilliant man on the planet. As they say, it’s inconceivable that all this has happened without a plan, without a blueprint, without some designer who created the design. So this book is so simple, yet I think profound truth.” Boone’s assertion that Stephen Hawking believes in God, however, is untrue.

Wiki/PatBoone/YouTube

Florida Latin Connection/ Arnoldo Varona, Editor

Famous People From Florida: Pat Boone