Art Garfunkel (born Arthur Ira Garfunkel on 5 November 1941 in Forest Hills, Queens, NYC, USA) is an American singer and actor, best known as half of the folk duo Simon & Garfunkel. He is of Romanian Jewish ancestry. He met his future singing partner, Paul Simon, in the sixth grade. Between 1956 and 1962, the two had performed together as Tom & Jerry. ...show more

Art Garfunkel (born Arthur Ira Garfunkel on 5 November 1941 in Forest Hills, Queens, NYC, USA) is an American singer and actor, best known as half of the folk duo Simon & Garfunkel. He is of Romanian Jewish ancestry. He met his future singing partner, Paul Simon, in the sixth grade. Between 1956 and 1962, the two had performed together as Tom & Jerry.

Garfunkel ("Tom Graph") chose his nickname because he liked to track, or "graph" hits, on the pop charts. Garfunkel attended Columbia University in the early sixties, where he sang with the Kingsmen, an all-male a cappella group. While at Columbia, he was also a Brother of the Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity. In 1962 Garfunkel earned a Bachelor of Arts degree majoring in art history, followed eventually by a Master's degree in mathematics.

In 1963 he and Simon reformed the duo under their own names as Simon and Garfunkel and released their first album, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. on Columbia Records in October 1964. It was not a critical success, and the duo effectively split again after recording. The next year their producer Tom Wilson lifted the song "The Sound of Silence" from the record, redubbed an electric backing onto it, and released it as a single, which eventually went to #1 on the Billboard pop charts. ...show less