as interracial marriages (for any person deemed non-white, be they Native American, East Indian, Chinese, or Black) were then illegal in California. Redd and his wife had two sons. Career as musician and entertainer Hollywood and the creation of Korla Pandit By the 1940s, Redd had moved from the Midwest to Los Angeles for more opportunity. His older sisters, Ruth and Frances, had already moved there by 1939. Redd used the name "Juan Rolando" to gain a job playing the organ on the Los Angeles radio station KMPC. Passing as a Mexican allowed him to join the Musicians Union (which was not open to African-Americans) and opened up additional opportunities for studio and club work. Redd and his wife, Beryl, created a new entertainment persona for Redd's use. They thought Redd could have exotic appeal by passing as an Indian because most Americans did not know much about people from India. Beryl designed the makeup and clothing Redd used, and Redd took the name "Korla Pandit". He developed an elaborate history and continued to add to it during his career. He stated that he had been born in New Delhi, India, to a French opera singer and an Indian Brahmin government official. Supposedly raised in an upper-class Indian household, Redd claimed to have studied music in England as a child, arrived in the United States at age 12, and studied at the University of Chicago. Redd used the Korla Pandit persona—in public and in private—for the rest of his life. In 1948, Redd created and played background music as Korla Pandit for the revival of radio's occult adventure series, Chandu the Magician, achieving atmospheric effects on the Novachord and the Hammond CV (ancestor of C3) electronic organ. In 1949, he became a regular organist on Hollywood Holiday, a show that was broadcast from a Los Angeles restaurant. Television success In 1948, while performing as Korla Pandit in Hollywood at a furrier's fashion show, Redd and his wife Beryl met television pioneer Klaus Landsberg. He offered Redd a television show with the stipulation that the musician would also provide accompaniment for Time for Beany, Bob Clampett's popular puppet show. Korla Pandit's Adventures In Music was first telecast on Los Angeles station KTLA in February 1949; it was the first all-music program on television. Viewers soon became familiar with the musical opening, "The Magnetic Theme." Landsberg insisted that Redd refrain from speaking