The Andrews Sisters the group was formed, and 12 when they won first prize at a talent contest at the local Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis, where LaVerne played piano accompaniment for the silent film showings in exchange for free dancing lessons for herself and her sisters. Following the collapse of their father's Minneapolis restaurant, the sisters went on the road to support the family. They started their career as imitators of an earlier successful singing group, the Boswell Sisters, who were popular in the 1930s. After singing with various dance bands and touring in vaudeville with the likes of Leon Belasco (and his
The Andrews Sisters ashes of their parents. Maxene Andrews married music publisher Lou Levy in 1941, separating in 1949. Levy was the sisters' manager from 1937 to 1951. Andrews died on October 21, 1995, after suffering a heart attack while vacationing on Cape Cod with her daughter/manager Lynda Wells. Patty Andrews married agent Marty Melcher in 1947 and left him in 1949, when he pursued a romantic relationship with Doris Day. She then married Walter Weschler, the trio's pianist, in 1951. Patty died of natural causes at her home in Northridge, California, on January 30, 2013, at the age of 94. Weschler, her