Singer in “Sleuth”

I try to think at least one nice thought per day.

On the other hand, it could very well be someone who had an active career in other media - anything from theater to TV commercials (who knows?) - for whom the reaction might be, "Gee, I'd almost forgotten I did that!" Back in the late '70s, my squeeze at the time introduced me to an old friend from their days in San Jose community theater, a guy named Mark Lambert. Sometime later, it was mentioned in passing that he had supplied the vocal for "Tomorrow Belongs To Me" in Cabaret, and I was mightily impressed (I hadn't even known that the voice didn't belong to the actor who appeared onscreen). And it was still later that I learned that Lambert had originated the role of Henrik in the original B'way production of A Little Night Music. Since then he's had a fairly steady career in television.

So this mystery vocalist might be someone for whom Sleuth was just one of many dozens of other jobs, among which could be equal or greater claims to fame. But we're still all wondering if we'll ever know, huh?  

Strange that this isn't #1 on Feinstein's "To Do" list. It's not like he has anything else going on. I'm still fasting until he comes through. Courage, Salzmank.

No answers yet?

Long shot, but, have you considered running this by SAG-AFTRA?
I can't find the name of a group of movie studio singers used in the 70s, otherwise, I'd suggest them as well.

Edit: Found it.
Correction: Studio musicians. The point, contacting one of them to see if they worked on that song and remember the vocalist. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wrecking_Crew_(music)

Salzmank
I just rewatched the Robert Redford version of The Great Gatsby (my favorite version). A few songs on the soundtrack were sung by a crooner named Nick Lucas. I thought he sounded somewhat similar to the singer in Sleuth. Have you ever heard of him?
Also, I was surprised to see that the film's opening song, the classic standard "What'll I Do?", was sung by actor William Atherton. Atherton was the star of early 70's films like Sugarland Express and Day of the Locust. He seems like an odd choice to sing an old standard for the opening credits of the Gatsby movie when he wasn't even in it. Maybe Sleuth just used some random actor (Atherton maybe?) to sing the Cole Porter songs.
Just trying to keep the thread going while we play "Waiting for Feinstein ".

Salzmank

Some late-in-the-day thoughts (and pardon if any are repeats of previously expressed ones; I've dwindled into an essentially lazy fellow, disinclined to review this and related threads):

My belief is that the means of determining the singer's identity are extant, either in the form of recollections of the singer himself or someone who knows/knew him (friend, relative or perhaps session musician involved in the recording) or on some long-buried document (call sheet, payroll record, etc), microfiche or other storage medium.

To the latter end, I began thinking about where such documentation may reside. One such resource is AMPAS's Margaret Herrick Library (www.oscars.org/library), recipient and guardian of voluminous document collections of studios, production entities or producers and hundreds of industry individuals. Among those is that of Joe Mankiewicz, described under their "Special Collections" listing as encompassing "45 linear feet" of papers. It's a long shot, as I'd guess such minor and run-of-the-mill documentation wouldn't be the type of thing he'd personally have maintained, but I'm forever coming across things around the house about which I wonder, "Why did I keep this?" And I'm a nobody. Their site provides contact info, in person, by email, phone or snail-mail (www.oscars.org/library/about#field-tabbed-content-tab-2) as well as a basic search form (catalog.oscars.org/vwebv/searchBasic). 

Another possibility would be the production entity itself (or remnant thereof). Palomar Pictures International - the entity which produced Sleuth, and its copyright holder - was a film production subsidiary of American Broadcasting Company (itself having since been absorbed by the Capital Cities/ABC corporate conglomerate) in operation from 1968 to 1975. Who knows what Cap Cities/ABC still has and in what form? 

Pursuit of either of these would of course be limited by the willingness and persistence of both the seeker and those they may contact to devote the time and energy to delve into it. In other words, if the answer exists in some documented form, the place(s) where it's most likely to reside is/are probably the most difficult to penetrate. But absent some fantastic, out-of-nowhere stroke of luck from the feelers you've put out, I can't think of anything else.          

     

Thanks for the vote of confidence, jervistetch. I just got to thinking back to when I went to work for a company that had recently acquired the Monogram/Allied Artists film library, and holy moly, the paperwork that came with it! A ton of stuff going back decades. Part of my job involved inventorying it, and what I came to learn about that or any other such company was that nobody would ever take the responsibility of being the one to throw anything away, unless they had instructions from the highest executive levels.  

That would be my guess: commercial jingles; theater; vocals for other motion picture "source music," perhaps a member of some group like The Alan Copeland Singers or whatnot.

That thing about Atherton leads me to speculate about some other well-known performer deliberately, shall we say, keeping his little secret. Can't recall (remember: lazy) if anyone has suggested it might/could have been Olivier himself. I confess I don't remember well enough how the voice sounded to judge whether that's a completely silly idea. I do seem to recall there had been some engineering employed to impart "tinniness" meant to suggest early recording technology.