Charlie Cannon

Charles Albert Cannon (September 11, 1911 – August 14, 2003), a singer, theater performer and co-founder of Starlight Opera in San Diego, California, was born in the coastal town of San Quintín, Baja California, near Ensenada.

Early years

Charlie Cannon was just 2½ when he performed for the first time in the lobby of his father's Baja California hotel. While attending San Diego High School, he sang in a boys' quartet and played saxophone in the student band.

He attended San Diego State College, where he met Art Linkletter, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune, and together they wrote an operetta. Cannon served three-and-a-half years in the U.S. Army during Second World War, and was stationed in the South Pacific.

Musical career

In 1945, Cannon, William Dean, Julius Leib and Robert J. Sullivan founded the San Diego Civic Light Opera Co., which ultimately became the Starlight Theatre in Balboa Park. It moved to its permanent location, in a 4,200-seat bowl, in 1948. During its first season in 1946, Cannon debuted on stage in Gilbert & Sullivan's "Mikado," presented in the San Diego Zoo's Wegeforth Bowl. Next, he starred in The Chocolate Soldier, H.M.S. Pinafore, Naughty Marietta, The Barber of Seville, and Hansel and Gretel.

Cannon performed in musicals and served as choral director for 15 years, then as the company producer, beginning in 1961. In 1964, he began performing as a piano-bar entertainer at the Red Fox Room, a steak house in San Diego, until 1985. Upon his retirement, he moved with his wife Joy, also a singer and performer at the Starlight Theatre, to Clarkston, Washington.

The Starlight Theatre, which remains open, is ranked one of the oldest continuously producing musical theater companies in the country.

Family

Charlie Cannon and his wife Joy (who died in 1999 at age 70), had two children, son Robert Cannon of San Diego and daughter Laura Doan of Manchester, England.