First came singing.
Although she majored in history, she had taken voice lessons from childhood and was determined to make it as a concert singer. From 1947 until 1954, she sang operatic and classical selections at sold-out concerts across the country, receiving a warm reception from affectionate (or politically toadying) audiences but frigid reaction from critics.
Washington Post critic Paul Hume was famously scolded by President Truman when he wrote of her 1949 concert at Washington's Constitution Hall, "Miss Truman is still too much of a vocal beginner to appear in public."
A 1947 concert in Pittsburgh had elicited similar criticism. "In one word, childish," snapped the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette echoed: "It is a pleasant, sweet voice, but it lacks volume and maturity. She sings with clarity and . . . precision, but leaves a great deal to be desired in musicality."
When she appeared the same year at the Hollywood Bowl along with legendary conductor Eugene Ormandy, 15,000 people applauded. But Albert Goldberg, then music critic of the Los Angeles Times, cautioned: "Interpretively, Miss Truman is not yet far beyond the student stage." He added that her voice "possesses promise" but required training, and he praised her poise in front of a large audience. She later said that she "was so cold I didn't think of being frightened."
Long after her eight-year concert career ended, she told The Times, "I knew a lot of people came out of curiosity. But I always hoped they stayed because they liked it."
Her friends thought the critics drove her from singing, but Daniel insisted she simply became more interested in acting.
She had appeared in high school and college stage productions and in a few radio programs for children. That limited experience, combined with encouragement from actress Helen Hayes, bankable name recognition and an able agent, won her a professional radio play debut opposite James Stewart in 1951.
She portrayed his wife in an NBC adaptation of the 1950 motion picture comedy "The Jackpot" that had starred Stewart and Barbara Hale.
Daniel was under contract to NBC and, from 1954 to 1961, was co-host of the five-minute radio spot "Authors in the News" and in 1955-56 was co-host with Mike Wallace of the radio program "Weekday." Filling in for Edward R. Murrow on his TV show "Person to Person," she interviewed her parents in 1955.
