Fit as a fiddle and ready to hang: depression-era crooner was the ‘singing slayer’
Standing on the gallows platform on February 1, 1935 at exactly 12 noon. Louis Kenneth Neu broke into an original show tune titled “I’m fit as a fiddle and ready to hang” in his distinctive baritone just seconds before the State of Louisiana executioner’s noose was placed around his neck. Then, after a quick soft-shoe routine on the steel trap door to test its efficacy, he nodded for the hood to be placed over his head. His last words were “don’t muss my hair.”
He was happier at that moment than he had been in years.
The 28-year-old Neu had a handsome face, a pleasant voice and loved the ladies, but during those dark days of 1933, the New York nightclub acts he yearned for were simply unavailable. He even was unable to secure the master of ceremonies job at a Times Square Chinese Restaurant. The best he could do was eke out one-night stands in coffee shops and speakeasies in the darker parts of town.
Then, Saturday night September 7, while panhandling along 42nd Street, Neu struck up a conversation with an older man named Lawrence Shead. Shead was the manager of a string of theaters in Paterson, New Jersey, and said he might have a job for the dapper but impoverished younger performer.
