The Gene Krupa Story The audience rewards Krupa with a standing ovation. The film ends as Ethel tries to sneak off, sure Gene will return to his old ways. He catches up with her, and asks where she is going, "without me"? The closing credits come down on a shot of them walking away together, into the night. In real life, the two were first married from 1934 to 1942; they remarried in 1946 and were together until Ethel's death in 1955. Krupa himself played the drums on the soundtrack for the film, and for the sequences in which Mineo, as Gene, plays the
Artie Schroeck was 8, he was noticed by jazz drummer Gene Krupa when the boys were performing in Atlantic City, and Krupa incorporated the boys' work into his own band, as well as that of jazz trumpeter Louis Prima. Harold eventually left the act at the age of 24 to raise his own family, but Artie continued with his music, and also began arranging songs for the bands that he was working with. In Las Vegas, Schroeck ran into jazz musician Lionel Hampton while they were both in a piano store and they started an impromptu jam session. Hampton immediately invited Schroeck