Julie Whitney

JULIA ALEKSANDROVNA Zapolskaya (WHITNEY) (1919-08.13.1965) - Soviet film actress and singer, a composer born in Moscow. Father - Alexander Zapolskiy (economist), mother - Estella Khokhlovkina. Her parents met at the University of Liège, about 1914 returned to Moscow, where Julia was born. She graduated from the Gnessin School, vocal class. During the war Zapolskaya was part of the pop band of Konstantin Smirnov-Sokolsky. She sang own songs arranged by accordion. At the end of 1940 Julia started to sing in the cinema by Nikitsky Gate, then it was decided to invite artists to follow her in sessions. She had several appearances after the war with Utesov Orchestra. Later, Julia Zapolskaya met US citizen journalist Whitney Thomas and emigrated from the USSR in 1953. They married in 1959 in Finland. Thomas Whitney helped her to make some records for the famous American company "Monitor", which produced what was called "world music". Her first album was called «Moscow After Dark» ( «Moscow Midnight"), released by DECCA, and the record has achieved quite widespread success. In total, the singer recorded and released 10 vinyls and wrote a book of fairy tales. The first official disc of Julia Zapolskaya in Russia was released in 2002. She died and was buried in New York. In the early 1990s, and in 2007, the entire series of records by Julia Zapolskaya was reissued in the US.