One TV Appearance, One Giant Hit and Two Very Unbothered Sisters
Performance Choice of the Day: Patience & Prudence singing “Tonight You Belong to Me” on The Perry Como Show in 1956 — two young sisters, one impossibly sweet harmony and a record that had suddenly made them famous whether they particularly planned on it or not.
By the time Patience and Prudence McIntyre stepped onto Perry Como’s stage on September 15, 1956, their version of the old standard had become one of that year’s surprise pop smashes. The Liberty Records single climbed to No. 4 in the U.S., sold more than a million copies and turned the Los Angeles sisters into national names while they were still schoolgirls.
And the wildest part? This was not the beginning of some giant television campaign. Their family was already putting the brakes on that.
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The Sweetest Little 1956 Time Capsule
Revisit Patience & Prudence, their Liberty Records hit and the vintage-pop world that briefly turned two sisters into chart stars.
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The Hit Started With a Song They Learned at Summer Camp
“Tonight You Belong to Me” was already an old song by the time Patience & Prudence got anywhere near it. Written by Lee David and Billy Rose, it had been a hit for Gene Austin back in the 1920s.
According to the sisters’ later biographies, Patience and Prudence learned the song at summer camp. Their father, Mark McIntyre, recognized it and worked up an arrangement. He was no amateur stage dad either: McIntyre was a professional pianist and arranger who had accompanied Frank Sinatra in the 1940s.
A recording featuring the girls’ voices eventually made its way through studio connections to Liberty Records founder Si Waronker. Liberty signed the sisters, they recut the track, and suddenly this delicate little harmony record was sharing 1956 pop culture with Elvis Presley, Doris Day, The Platters and Perry Como himself.
Billboard’s September 1956 reporting shows just how deeply the record had landed: “Tonight You Belong to Me” was appearing among the strongest sellers in major U.S. markets during the same stretch that the sisters made their Como appearance.
The Perry Como Show Was Basically Their Entire TV Era
That September 15 broadcast is much more interesting once you realize how little television Patience & Prudence actually did.
Contemporary television listings place the sisters on the season return of The Perry Como Show alongside Irene Dunne, Sal Mineo and Buddy Hackett. Later accounts from Patience describe the Como booking as the one television appearance their family selected during the girls’ initial rush of fame.
Their parents knew the entertainment business and were wary of turning their daughters into full-time “professional children.” Offers for more television, movies and commercials reportedly came in, but most were declined.
Which makes the surviving Como footage feel almost weirdly precious now. There is no long archive of Patience & Prudence bouncing from variety show to variety show. This is one of the very few chances to actually watch the teenage hitmakers inside the moment that made them famous.
Then They Did It Again With “Gonna Get Along Without Ya Now”
“Tonight You Belong to Me” was not their only chart moment. Later in 1956, Patience & Prudence followed it with “Gonna Get Along Without Ya Now,” their airy take on the Milton Kellem song.
That one climbed to No. 11 in the U.S., giving the sisters a second major hit in the same year. A contemporary Cash Box review was already calling them “America’s Little Darlings” and predicting another smash after their debut had spent months riding the charts.
Their recording career continued with more singles, but the sisters never became the heavily packaged child-star act the industry probably could have made them. In a 1978 television reunion, they described the whole thing as something of an accident and reiterated that performing had never been the grand plan.
Why “Tonight You Belong to Me” Still Sounds So Strange and Lovely
Seventy years later, the recording still has an eerie sweetness that is difficult to fake. Their voices are close, light and almost conversational — nothing is pushed, belted or decorated to death.
That restraint is the magic. The song is romantic, but the sisters’ youthful delivery gives it this dreamy distance, like something floating in from another room.
And then you see them on The Perry Como Show: two sisters in the middle of an enormous hit, performing on national television, with a family already deciding that maybe becoming permanent show-business children was not actually the prize.
Iconic behavior, frankly.
Watch Patience & Prudence Sing “Tonight You Belong to Me” on The Perry Como Show
The archival clip captures the sisters’ September 15, 1956 television appearance during the height of their Liberty Records breakthrough.
Sources: Billboard; Cash Box; AllMusic; Apple Music; 1956 television listings.
