Comedians or comediennes don't make for great singers. Go through the list of comedians/comediennes and you 'll find no Top 40 songs being sung. You get Bill Cosby doing a take on Stevie Wonder's "Uptight" with his song "Little Ole Man" in 1967, but the comedian is mostly talking throughout the record.
And that's what made Tracey Ullman's appearance on American Top 40 in the spring of 1984 unique. She came in at No. 34, the highest debuting song of the week of March 17, 1984, with "They Don't Know," a song that was written and first recorded by Kirsty MacColl in 1979 with little success. When Ullman recorded it, her backing vocalist on the song was none other than the woman who wrote the song to begin with -- MacColl. Already a No. 2 hit in her native England, "They Don't Know" would ultimately peak at No. 8 and would be the only Top 40 hit in the U.S. for Ullman, born Trace Ullman in Slough, Berkshire, England, on December 30, 1959.
Ullman, though, was a comedienne, making her living on the British television show Three Of A Kind when she was approached by the wife of Stiff Records wife Dave Robinson at the local hairdresser if she wanted to make an album. Said Ullman, "I said, 'Yeah I want to make a record' I would've tried anything."
But the producer of Ullman's TV show was not so sure. Said that producer in a 2010 interview, "When I first met Miss Ullman, I was a TV producer, and I called her into my office in London and I told her that she had a big career in comedy, and she said to me, ‘Well actually, I’m doing a record next week,’ and I said, ‘Now listen here Miss Ullman, if I know anything about show business, is that you shouldn’t get involved with singing.' Imagine how stupid I felt about four months later, I’m in London driving around and I hear, ‘And now, the Top of the Pops, Tracey Ullman with ‘They Don’t Know About Us.’”
That man who had the doubts, TV producer Allan McKeown, married Ullman in late 1983 and the pair would be together raising two children until McKeown lost his battle with prostrate cancer on Christmas Eve, 2013, at the age of 67.
Then again, Ullman dealt with her share of heartbreak growing up. Her father had a heart attack and passed away when she was 6. Her mother had a difficult time trying to raise two young girls on her own and had to work odd jobs just to keep things above water. And when her mum was depressed, it would be Trace and her older sister Patti who would entertain their mother on the window sill of their home in Hackbridge by doing all kinds of entertaining skits.
Even in the worst of times, Ullman said it was having a sense of humor that got her through her childhood. When she was older, she was awarded a scholarship to attend the Italia Conti Academy of the Arts in London, one of the first students at the school established in 1971. Always battling the looks of other students there because of her "ethnic features," Ullman managed to earn a role in the ballet troupe of the German version of the show Gigi at 16. She joined the dance troupe Second Generation after returning from Berlin and branched out into musical theater, doing the West End-based stages for Grease, Elvis The Musical and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
She branched out into comedy theater where she did the improvisational Four In A Million and won Best Newcomer Award honors for her portrayal of born-again Christian chanteuse Beverly. Soon after, she was given the chance to continue to make funny ways in the TV show Three Of A Kind. At 21 years old, Ullman's career took off.
Ullman would have a number of UK on the record chart hits from her two albums, the first one being "You Broke My Heart In 17 Places." She would continue to do comedy on shows like Girls On Top and A Kick Up The Eighties when U.S. TV producer James L. Brooks of Taxi and The Mary Tyler Moore Show fame approached her about doing a show in the U.S. in 1986.
Years earlier, a clairvoyant had told a younger Ullman that one day she would be approached by a producer to go to the U.S. and become a big star there. She more than took advantage of that and in 1987, work began on The Tracey Ullman Show on fledgling FOX TV. It was a comedy variety skit show that had Ullman playing many different characters and whose choreographer had just worked with Janet Jackson on the music videos for her "Control" album -- Paula Abdul.
The series lasted three seasons and earned four Emmy nominations. But the show isn't remembered for those Emmy nominations or the dancing or anything Ullman did really. It was best known for what Brooks' friend, Matt Groening, put together as a small side project "short" on the show -- a cartoon family called The Simpsons. By 1989, the Simpsons had their own gig on FOX and Ullman's show came to an end the following May.
So if you need someone to "thank" for the longest-running cartoon show in history, it's Tracey Ullman.
Since her show, you can find Ullman via cable television, most famously her HBO show Tracey Takes On ... and her 2005 Emmy-nominated show Tracey Ullman: Live And Exposed. In 2007, Ullman moved over to HBO rival Showtime and in 2008, debuted Tracey Ullman's State Of The Union, which was 19 episodes long over three seasons.
In 2014, Ullman stayed busy: She played the role of Genevieve Scherbatsky in three episodes of the TV series How I Met Your Mother, did an episode of Sofia The First, and played Jack's mother in the Walt Disney movie Into The Woods. She also played Lily Martin in the New York City Center-hosted play The Band Wagon.
And in early March 2015, it was revealed that Ullman was to do her first BBC-based TV show in 30 years -- and the six-show, comedy skit series is called, you guessed it, The Tracey Ullman Show.
Still, if that wasn't enough, she was co-starring in Paul McCartney's 2013 music video for the song "Queenie Eye." Really, she was just paying the Beatle legend back for him making a cameo at the end of her 1984 breakthrough hit "They Don't Know" as she was filming a small role in his 1984 movie Give My Regards To Broad Street.
Tracey Ullman's music career may have been short, but it was just a small part of the talents this British lady has put forward practically her whole life. And "They Don't Know" had a small starring role in it.
Not bad for an established comedienne, huh?
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