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He was born Al Cernick in Detroit in 1927, into a Yugoslavian immigrant family whose members sang as often as possible, for their own pleasure. He made his first appearance as a singer at age three, at a wedding reception. The Cernick family moved across the country in search of a place they liked, before reaching Los Angeles in 1938. He was spotted by a talent scout and signed up as a child performer at Warner Bros. Studios that same year, and managed to broadcast over a studio-controlled radio station. He joined the navy for a two-year hitch in 1944, resuming his radio singing career afterward. In 1947, he joined the Carmen Cavallaro orchestra, still billed as Al Cernick, as the featured vocalist, but a bout of food-poisoning caused him to drop out. In 1948, he cut some sides for King Records as Al Grant, and won first prize on Arthur Godfrey's Talents Scouts radio program. This led to his being hired as a demo singer by various music publishers (one of the songs he demoed was InchRudolph the Red Nosed ReindeerInch). The singer was signed up by impresario Eddie Joy, who intensified his training and finally introduced him to Mitch Miller, the head of Artists and Repertory for Columbia Records. It was Miller who transformed Al Cernick into Guy Mitchell, using his own first same for the surname. Mitchell's first five singles at Columbia failed, and his career was only rescued when Frank Sinatra, still with Columbia Records, declined to cut a pair of songs for which Miller had already set recording sessions and engaged musicians. Mitchell was brought into the studio, and the resulting recordings of InchMy Heart Cries for YouInch and InchThe Roving KindInch rode the charts for 21 weeks in 1951, selling nearly two million copies. Mitchell's recording career was made, although his performing career needed work-he'd hardly had the chance to develop a serious stage act or ef
