Frankie Valli

At 90 years old, Frankie Valli has this physical status:

Frankie Valli (born Francesco Stephen Castelluccio; May 3, 1934) is an American singer and actress best known as the frontman of The Four Seasons, who debuted in 1960.

He is best known for his tenor/lead, which is particularly strong. Valli had 29 hits with The Four Seasons, one Top 40 hit under The Four Seasons alias The Wonder Who?, and nine Top 40 hits as a solo artist.

Valli's top hits, "Sherry" (1962), "Big Girls Don't Cry" (1963), "Walk Like a Man" (1963), "Rag Doll" (1964), and "December, 1963" (Oh, What a Night) (1975).

In 1967, Valli's album "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" debuted at number one on the charts.

Valli's debuts as a solo artist with the albums "My Eyes Adored You" (1974) and "Grease" (1978). Valli, Tommy DeVito, Nick Massi, and Bob Gaudio, the original founders of The Four Seasons, were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990 and 1999.

Early life

Valli was born Francesco Stephen Castelluccio, 1934, to an Italian family in Newark's First Ward; he was the eldest of three sons. Anthony Castelluccio, Jr., was a barber and display designer for Lionel model trains; his mother, Mary Rinaldi, was a homemaker and beer company employee. After his mother took him to see the young Frank Sinatra at the Paramount Theater in Manhattan, New York City, he was inspired to pursue a singing career at the age of seven. "Texas" Jean Valli, one of his early favorites, was one of his first acts, and he later adopted his stage name. He worked as a barber before he could support himself with music.

Valli's birth year has been put into question. Valli never addressed the issue himself until the 2007 edition of the Official Frankie Valli Website, which is financed by his new record company, Universal Records. Much of his early public records concerning his career used 1937 as the birth year. Other sources, including the Bear Family Records, "The Four Lovers" (BCD 15424), as well as a 1965 mug shot, which are also available through The Smoking Gun, identify his year of birth as 1934.

Personal life

Valli has been married three times. When he was in his early twenties, he married Mary, who already had a two-year-old daughter when he was dating her. They raised two children together and divorced 13 years later in 1971. In 1974, he married MaryAnn Hannagan, and the marriage lasted eight years. Randy Clohessy married Karen Clohessy in 1984; the family had three sons and divorced in 2004. Celia, his stepdaughter, was killed after she fell off a fire escape; six months later, Francine, his youngest daughter from his marriage to Mary, died from a heroin overdose.

When it came to the Supreme Court of California, one of the three problems in Valli's third divorce was whether a life-insurance policy purchased in 2003 was community property. In an opinion signed by Associate Justice Joyce Kennard, the state supreme court unanimously confirmed the policy's finding that the project was community property (not Randy's separate property).

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Music career

Valli began his singing career with the Variety Trio in the early 1950s (Nickie DeVito, Tommy DeVito, and Nick Macioci). Valli's wish to perform in public was first acknowledged when the group first heard Valli perform, giving him a guest seat when they performed. The Variety Trio disbanded in late 1952, and Valli, along with Tommy DeVito, formed part of the Strand in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Valli also performed bass and sang for his role.

He recorded his first single, "My Mother's Eyes" (a recreation of Lucky Boy's 1929 George Jessel song "Frankie Valley), a twist on a term he adopted from Jean Valli, a female hillbilly performer, in 1953. "Frankie" told music publishers Paul and Dave Kapp that he was her brother in 2010 as discussed in a 2014 article. As a result, his first single was released under the title 'Frankie Valley,' and the name stuck, although he later changed it to the correct spelling [as Texas Jean was using].

Valli and Tommy DeVito left the house band at The Strand and formed The Variatones with Hank Majewski, Frank Cottone, and Billy Thompson around this time. The group impressed New York record man Peter Paul, who had them auditioning at RCA Victor a week later, in 1956 as part of an audition for a female singer.

The four Lovers, the band's renamed band, have released several singles and one album's worth of songs. In 1956, they had a minor hit with "You're the Apple of My Eye." Nickie DeVito and Hank Majewski were both shot in 1958 and then replaced by Nick Macioci (now Nick Massi) and Hugh Garrity. Massi was in and out of the group, and occasionally Charles Calello would appear on the bandwagon. The group continued to function until 1959, when Bob Gaudio became a member. After a few more changes, the group was renamed "The Four Seasons" in 1960 after a bowling alley in Union, New Jersey, in which they auditioned at its cocktail lounge.

Valli, the lead singer of the Four Seasons, had a string of hits beginning with the number-one hit "Sherry" in 1962. During this period of his Four Seasons work, bassist and vocal arranger Nick Massi was transferred in 1965 by Charlie Calello, the group's musical arranger, and shortly thereafter, Joseph LaBracio was promoted to Calello by Joseph LaBracio, who went by the pseudonym Joe Long.

During the 1960s, Gaudio and his then-songwriting partner, producer Bob Crewe, collaborated with Valli to create solo recordings with varying degrees of success. In the rock/pop world, the notion of a major recording artist performing solo in opposition to his or her own group's performances was unusual, (Buddy Holly and the Crickets were an exception), and it may have given tacit permission to other groups and individuals of other organizations to pursue such a route. Valli, Gaudio, and Crewe all rose to the occasion with both fantastic performances and commercial hits, with the potential to rule the charts with group and solo recordings. Valli was the first artist to record "The Sun Ain't Shine (Anymore)", a performance that was largely copied by the Walker Brothers, an American group based in England. The Walker Brothers version was a huge hit. Valli continued to perform solo and then became a hit with the debut of "Can't Take My Eyes Off You," which debuted at number two on the charts and was widely distributed by many other artists.

Valli's debut solo album was a collection of single releases and a few new ones. A single was released in July 1967 with the A-side "I Make a Fool of Myself," Valli's second solo album. Valli's second solo album was more cohesive, and Valli took longer to record it. "To Give (The Reason I Live)" is one of Timeless' top 40 hits.

Valli departed the 1960s with a number of recordings that were included in the Valli/Four Seasons album Half & Half or as a series of singles. "The Girl I'll Never Know (Angels Never Fly This Low)" was the only hit to debut at this moment, peaking at number 52.

"You're Ready Now," a Valli solo recording from 1966, debuted on the Northern soul scene and climbed to number one on the UK Singles Chart in December 1970. "The Night" was first released in 1970, it became a big Northern soul, and as a result, it reached number seven on the UK Singles Chart in 1975.

His single "My Eyes Adored You" debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1975 and reached number five in the UK chart. In the same year, he had a number six Billboard hit with "Swearin' to God" on the chart, reaching number 31, while more UK chart success came with "Fallen Angel," written by Guy Fletcher and Doug Flett. Valli was in the UK charts, ranked number 11, but this was at a time when the Four Seasons celebrated a hit with "Silver Star" in which Valli did not appear as leader.

Valli wrote "A Day in the Life" for the ephemeral musical film "All This and World War II" in 1976.

He sang the theme tune for the film version of Grease, a song written by Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees that became a number one smash in 1978. In November 1978, he had two more chart hits, "Save Me, Save Me" which debuted on the Billboard Easy Listening chart, and "Fancy Dancer" in January 1979, which made it into the pop charts.

Valli began suffering from otosclerosis in 1967, causing him to "sing from memory" in the later 1970s. Victor Goodhill, a Los Angeles ear specialist, recovered the majority of his hearing by 1980.

The musical Jersey Boys debuted on Broadway in 2005. It includes a biographical narrative told as four separate points of view by each of the four Seasons (Tommy DeVito, Frankie Valli, Nick Massi, and Bob Gaudio), with Valli himself portrayed by John Lloyd Young in the original production, as well as performances by many of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons hit recordings. Several true-life events from Valli's life, including his estrangement from daughter Francine, who died in 1980, are chronicled in this series. The program has been highly praised, financially sound, and it has been nominated for eight Tony Awards, four of which included Best Musical, Actor, and Supporting Actor. Around the world, as well as a Paris Las Vegas version, the musical has toured companies around the world. Young was also seen as Valli in this film, which was directed by Clint Eastwood.

Valli released Romancing the '60s, an album containing covers of his 1960s hits, two of which, "Sunny" and "Any Day Now"—both of which he had previously performed. This was Valli's first solo album in nearly twenty-seven years after the 1980s' Heaven Above Me.

Valli made his Broadway debut in October 2012 with a week-long concert appearance at the Broadway Theatre in New York, starting in October 19.

"Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons" was touring the United States from March 2016 to January 2017, including the Silver Legacy Casino in Reno, Nevada, the Celebrity Theatre in Phoenix, Arizona, and the County Fair in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. Valli's debut in October 2016 was his first solo album in nine years, 'Tis the Seasons,' which featured Valli performing some of his favorite Christmas songs.

Together with the BBC Concert Orchestra in Hyde Park on September 10, 2016, the four Seasons performed with the BBC Concert Orchestra in the Park Valli.

Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons continued touring in 2018 and 2019, with a new lineup following his debut as the Modern Gentlemen in 2003. However, all touring plans were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Touring in the summer of 2021 has resumed, with dates set until July 2022. Valli's twelfth studio album, his first in five years, Touch of Jazz, which includes a set of Jazz cover songs, was released in June 2021.

Acting career

Valli has appeared in Miami Vice (as Mafia boss Frank Doss), Full House, the 1998 television film Witness to the Mob (as Frank LoCascio of the Gambino criminal family), The Sopranos (as mobster Rusty Millio), and the 2014 film And So It Goes, all referring to her as "The Mayor of Munchkin Land") and the sequel And So It Goes.

Valli played mysterious lawyer Leonard Cassano who was engaged to Carol Burnett's character, Aunt Deb, on Hawaii Five-0's November 21, 2014 episode entitled "Inside Job."

Valli did interviews as himself on the AMC television series The Making of the Mob: New York in 2015.

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