Keely Smith
Keely Smith was born in Norfolk, Virginia, United States on March 9th, 1932 and is the Jazz Singer. At the age of 85, Keely Smith biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, songs, and networth are available.
At 85 years old, Keely Smith has this physical status:
Dorothy Jaely (March 9, 1928 – December 16, 2017), better known as Keely Smith, appeared and recorded extensively in the 1950s with then-husband Louis Primancely, and later as a solo artist in the 1960s.
Early years
Smith was born in Norfolk, Virginia. She traced her ancestry to Ireland and Cherokee. Jesse Smith, Smith's stepfather, and her mother worked in laundry to earn money to buy gowns for Smith to wear when she marched.
Personal life
In Pasquotank County, North Carolina, Smith first married Matteo Gambardella Jr., on September 6, 1947, before divorcing in December 1950. Smith married Louis Prima in Virginia Beach on July 13, 1953. Toni Elizabeth and Luanne Francis were the two children. Prior to her separation from Prima in 1961, Smith had an affair with Frank Sinatra. Clint Eastwood had a personal relationship with her. In 1965, she married Jimmy Bowen. In 1969, the couple divorced. In 1975, Smith married singer Bobby Milano (real name Charles Caci) in Palm Springs. The bride was not returned by Sinatra, who gave her a letter of apology.
Smith died of apparent heart failure in Palm Springs, California, at the age of 89. She is buried in Hollywood Hills' Forest Lawn Memorial Park.
Career
When Smith was 11 years old, she sang regularly as a cast member of The Joe Brown Radio Gang program on a Norfolk station. At age 14, Smith sang with a naval air station band led by Saxie Dowell. At 15, she got her first paying job with the Earl Bennett band. She saw Louis Prima perform in New York City in 1949. They recorded together in 1949 and married on July 13, 1953.
Their songs included Johnny Mercer's and Harold Arlen's "That Old Black Magic", which was a Top 20 hit in the US in 1958. At the 1st Annual Grammy Awards in 1959, Smith and Prima won the first Grammy for Best Performance by a Vocal Group or Chorus for "That Old Black Magic". Her deadpan act was popular with fans. The duo followed up with the minor successes "I've Got You Under My Skin" and "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen", a cover of the 1937 Andrews Sisters hit.
Smith and Prima's act was a mainstay of the Las Vegas lounge scene for much of the 1950s. Though her actual voice was not used, she was caricatured as "Squealy Smith" in Bob Clampett's 1960 Beany and Cecil episode "So What and the Seven Whatnots", a Snow White spoof in a Vegas setting.
Smith appeared with Prima in the movie Hey Boy! Hey Girl!, singing "Fever", and also appeared in and sang on the soundtrack of the previous year's film Thunder Road. Her song in Thunder Road was "Whippoorwill". She also appeared in the film Senior Prom.
Her first big solo hit was "I Wish You Love" in 1957, and it brought her a Grammy award nomination for Best Vocal Performance, Female. Her debut album by that same title achieved gold status In 1961, Smith divorced Prima. She then signed with Reprise Records, where her musical director was Nelson Riddle. In 1965, she had Top 20 hits in the United Kingdom with an album of Beatles compositions, Keely Smith Sings The John Lennon—Paul McCartney Songbook, and a single, "You're Breaking My Heart", which reached No. 14 in April.
She returned to singing in 1985, recording the album I'm in Love Again with Bud Shank and Bill Perkins. Her albums, Swing, Swing, Swing (2000), Keely Sings Sinatra (2001) for which she received a Grammy nomination, and Keely Swings Basie-Style With Strings (2002) won critical and popular acclaim. In 2008 she performed a duet with Kid Rock during the 50th Grammy Awards on "That Old Black Magic".
Smith earned rave reviews for her performances at Feinstein's nightclub in Manhattan in 2005. Said Variety: "Smith’s bold, dark voice took firm hold on a handful of great standard tunes, and she swung hard", and The New Yorker review called her "both legendary and underrated ... She can still sing the stuffing out of a ballad as well as swing any tune into the stratosphere."
According to a news release from her publicist issued upon her passing, Smith was "very resolute in being in control of the trajectory of her career".
Smith's final performance was on Feb. 13, 2011, at the Cerritos Performing Arts Center in Southern California.