Jimmy Boyd

Jimmy Boyd was an American singer, musician and actor who started out as a child performer, winning a local talent contest that led to appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show and The Frank Sinatra Show. Born in Mississippi in 1939 and raised in southern California, he recorded I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus for Columbia Records at 13 in 1952; it sold more than two and a half million copies in its first week and returned to number one the next Christmas. His other hits included the duets Tell Me a Story with Frankie Laine and Dennis the Menace with Rosemary Clooney. On television he played Huckleberry Finn in a 1956 United States Steel Hour musical and was a regular on Date with the Angels and Bachelor Father, while his film work included Inherit the Wind (1960). He received a Hollywood Walk of Fame star in 1959. He died in 2009.