A bold promise, a title made up on the spot, and twenty minutes in a Las Vegas washroom. The story behind a 1955 classic.
In 1955, a young vocal group had just scored its first big hit, and everyone wanted to know what would come next. Their manager and songwriter, Buck Ram, bragged to a record man that he had an even better song ready to go.
There was just one problem: the song did not exist yet. When he was pressed for the name, he blurted out a title on the spot, “The Great Pretender.”
Twenty Minutes in Las Vegas
The group was performing at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. That night, Ram slipped into the hotel washroom with a pencil and paper and, by his own account, wrote the whole song in about twenty minutes.
Straight to the Top
The Platters released it in November 1955, with Tony Williams singing lead. Early in 1956 it reached No. 1 on both the pop and R&B charts, the group’s first national No. 1.
They also sang it in one of the very first rock and roll movies, and decades later Freddie Mercury of Queen turned it into a hit all over again.
Why It Still Matters
The song is about a man who smiles on the outside while his heart is breaking. Generations of listeners have heard themselves in it, which is why it still turns up in films and on oldies radio today.
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