American Masters
Monday, August 24, at 10 p.m.
on WKAR-HD and WKAR-23

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Nat King Cole Profiled on "American Masters"

In 2005 — 40 years after his untimely death — musical pioneer Nat King Cole returned to Billboard’s Top 50, proving his everlasting appeal. American Masters now pays tribute to one of the world’s most beloved entertainers with a documentary that sheds new light on Cole’s universal appeal and towering achievements during a 30-year music and television career. As Isaac Hayes says in the documentary,“He was cool before it was cool to be cool.”

The film features rare archival performances, home movies and interviews with Cole’s wife and daughters, Harry Belafonte, Tony Bennett, Harry Connick Jr., Whoopi Goldberg, Isaac Hayes, Quincy Jones, B.B. King, Eartha Kitt, Carlos Santana, Stevie Wonder and Andrew Young, and includes clips of “When I Fall In Love,” “Straighten Up and Fly Right,” “Nature Boy,” “Mona Lisa,” “Smile,” “Unforgettable” and many other hits.

The World of Nat King Cole is the story of a musical prodigy who popularized the jazz piano trio and became the first black entertainer to have his own television show. Hugely successful, Cole sold so many songs for Capitol — more than nine million — that the company’s signature Los Angeles headquarters is known as “The House That Nat Built.” His record of more than 150 singles on Billboard’s Pop, R&B and Country charts remains unbroken by any other Capitol artist.

In the 1940s, '50s and '60s, Cole was a black man selling to a white audience. The film is a vehicle for today’s popular performers as well as Cole’s contemporaries to comment on the many ways the best-selling artist broke the color barrier. “I saw a lot of white people with Nat King Cole records,” says B.B. King in The World of Nat King Cole. “That’s what he did. People didn’t think of what color he was, just of what a great artist, great singer.”

Despite his popularity, Cole and his family faced blatant racism when they moved into an all-white neighborhood in Los Angeles, sparking the headline “Negro Moving to Swank Area.” Cole’s new neighbors poisoned his dog, burned a cross in his yard and shot a bullet through his window. “When we moved into Hancock Park we upset Los Angeles. We upset the newspapers, we were headlines,” says Maria Cole. “I’m sorry, but it really makes me laugh now at their stupidity.” At the time, Cole was making $2.5 million a year for Capitol.

After appearing on numerous television shows, the ever-popular Cole hosted his own. With “Too Young” and “Unforgettable” at the top of the charts, “The Nat King Cole Show” debuted on NBC in 1956, the same year Cole was attacked on stage by members of the White Citizens Council as he and his integrated band played before a segregated audience in Birmingham. After a year of solid ratings, Cole killed his show when it failed to attract a corporate sponsor. “Madison Avenue,” he said, “is afraid of the dark.”

When he began to lose American audiences to rock ’n’ roll, Cole turned his attention to international audiences, recording his songs in numerous languages and cultivating millions of new fans. Cole’s wife and daughters, Natalie and Carol, describe sharing a husband and father with the world. “We lived very well but I would rather have had more of my Dad and I’m sure that we all felt the same way,” says Natalie Cole, whose own singing career really took off when she released a posthumous duet with her father. “When dad was home there was a certain presence throughout the house. Everything just felt right, everything felt complete.”

Cole, a lifelong smoker, died of lung cancer three months after taking ill in 1965. By then, he’d campaigned for John F. Kennedy and performed at his inauguration. He’d toured South America and Japan and broken all attendance records at London’s Palladium. He’d starred in a motion picture, won a Grammy and headlined a musical. His life was, in a word, “unforgettable.” With annual album sales topping the one million mark around the world, Cole continues to be one of Capitol Records’ top-selling artists.