Ronnie Eckstine
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Ron Eckstine (born 1946) is a former actor and
music manager A talent manager (also known as an artist manager, band manager, or music manager) is an individual who guides the professional career of Entertainer, artists within the entertainment industry. The responsibility of a talent manager is to ove ...
, and stepson of singer
Billy Eckstine William Clarence Eckstine (July 8, 1914 – March 8, 1993) was an American jazz and pop singer and a bandleader during the swing and bebop eras. He was noted for his rich, almost operatic bass-baritone voice. In 2019, Eckstine was posthumously a ...
by way of Billy's marriage to Ronnie's mother, Carolle Drake.


Early life

He played
high school football High school football, also known as prep football, is gridiron football played by High school (North America), high school teams in the United States and Canada. It ranks among the most popular high school sports, interscholastic sports in both c ...
at Birmingham High School, where he and his older brother Kenny were the only
African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...
students, and attended the
University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...
.


Career

He was conscripted into military service in 1965. Six months after he completed his service, and with dramatic training by Lillian Randolph, Eckstine made his acting debut in the 1967 film '' The Love-Ins''. He appeared in the TV movie ''Shadow on the Land'' (1968), an adaptation of
Sinclair Lewis Harry Sinclair Lewis (February 7, 1885 – January 10, 1951) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. In 1930 Nobel Prize in Literature, 1930, he became the first author from the United States (and the first from the America ...
's novel ''
It Can't Happen Here ''It Can't Happen Here'' is a 1935 dystopian political novel by the American author Sinclair Lewis. Set in a fictionalized version of the 1930s United States, it follows an American politician, Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, who quickly rises to pow ...
'', and had guest roles in the television series ''
Room 222 ''Room 222'' is an American comedy-drama television series produced by 20th Century Fox Television that aired on American Broadcasting Company, ABC for 112 episodes, from September 17, 1969, until January 11, 1974. The show was broadcast on 1969 ...
'' and ''
Cannon A cannon is a large-caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder during th ...
''. In the 1970s, he organized and managed a six-person teen vocal group, Spicegarden, with Laddie Chapman as the musical director. In the 1980s, Eckstine began promoting concerts and managing
disco Disco is a music genre, genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the late 1960s from the United States' urban nightclub, nightlife, particularly in African Americans, African-American, Italian-Americans, Italian-American, LGBTQ ...
and other dance music groups and by the late 1990s had established Ron Eckstine Management, based in
Beverly Hills Beverly Hills is a city located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. A notable and historic suburb of Los Angeles, it is located just southwest of the Hollywood Hills, approximately northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Beverly Hil ...
.


Escape

In February 1984, after Eckstine was arrested on charges of
forgery Forgery is a white-collar crime that generally consists of the false making or material alteration of a legal instrument with the specific mens rea, intent to wikt:defraud#English, defraud. Tampering with a certain legal instrument may be fo ...
and evasion of arrest, he escaped from jail the following month by exchanging identification bracelets with another prisoner and leaving on that prisoner's bail. Eckstine's family then issued a press release asking the
Los Angeles Police Department The City of Los Angeles Police Department, commonly referred to as Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), is the primary law enforcement agency of Los Angeles, California, United States. With 8,832 officers and 3,000 civilian staff, it is the th ...
to be discreet in their attempts to recapture him.


Personal life

Eckstine met singer
Leslie Uggams Leslie Marian Uggams (; born May 25, 1943) is an American actress and singer. After beginning her career as a child in the early 1950s, she garnered acclaim for her role in the Broadway theatre, Broadway musical ''Hallelujah, Baby!'', winning a T ...
in June 1964 while she was performing at the
Flamingo Flamingos or flamingoes () are a type of wading bird in the family Phoenicopteridae, which is the only extant family in the order Phoenicopteriformes. There are four flamingo species distributed throughout the Americas (including the Caribbe ...
in Las Vegas and the two started dating. Uggams announced her engagement to Eckstine the following month while she was performing in Australia. When Eckstine was conscripted into military service, Uggams left him for Grahame Pratt, a European Australian man whom she married in 1965.


See also

*
List of fugitives from justice who disappeared This is a list of fugitives from justice, notable people who disappeared or evaded capture while being sought by law enforcement agencies in connection with a crime, and who are currently sought or were sought for the duration of their presumed ...


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Eckstine, Ronnie 1946 births 20th-century American male actors African-American United States Army personnel American escapees American male film actors American music managers Birmingham High School alumni Escapees from California detention Fugitives Living people 20th-century African-American male actors 21st-century African-American male actors 21st-century American male actors