Hotel Pennsylvania during the three years of Miller's great popularity as a major bandleader of the Swing Era. Glenn Miller and his Glenn Miller Orchestra broadcast multiple live radio performances from the Café; some were recorded by RCA Victor. Gray, Shaw's principal orchestrator from 1937–39, was immediately hired by Miller as a staff arranger when Shaw deserted his band; it was during Miller's 1940 engagement at the hotel that Gray wrote the popular instrumental tune that immortalized the Hotel's telephone number. The hotel's telephone number appears in the title of one of his best-known songs, "Pennsylvania 6-5000". Les Brown's band, with its
Glenn Miller included Marion Hutton, Skip Nelson, Ray Eberle and to a smaller extent, Kay Starr, Ernie Caceres, Dorothy Claire and Jack Lathrop. Pat Friday ghost-sang with the Miller band in their two films, "Sun Valley Serenade" and "Orchestra Wives" with Lynn Bari lip synching. Miller and his band appeared in two Twentieth Century Fox films. In 1941's "Sun Valley Serenade", they were major members of the cast, which also featured comedian Milton Berle, and Dorothy Dandridge with the Nicholas Brothers in the show-stopping song and dance number, Chattanooga Choo Choo. The Miller band returned to Hollywood to film 1942's "Orchestra Wives",