Keely Smith, the iconic jazz and pop vocalist who achieved success as both a solo artist and with her musical partnership with first husband Louis Prima, died on Dec. 16 in Palm Springs.
She was 89.
The singer was “under physicians’ care at the time of her passing from apparent heart failure,” according to publicist Bob Merlis.
Smith was a Grammy-winning talent who gained much attention when as a teenager she got the job as the “girl singer” in Prima’s band in 1948.
She married Prima in 1953 and achieved success together throughout the entertainment business, starring in stage, television and movies and releasing hit records.
They’d win a Grammy in 1959 — the first year the awards were handed out — for best pop vocal performance by a duo or group for their smash “That Old Black Magic,” which remained on the charts for 18 weeks.
Prima and Smith had two children, Toni Prima and Luanne Prima, both of whom survive their mother. Louis Prima died in 1978.
She was born Dorothy Jacqueline Keely in Norfolk VA on March 9, 1928. She showed a “natural aptitude for singing at a young age” and “at (age) 15, she got her first paying job with the Earl Bennett band,” according to a news release from her publicist.
After she joined with Prima, the pair delivered such memorable hits as “Bei Mir Bist Du Schön” and “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” as well as the best selling albums with “The Wildest!” and “The Wildest Show at Tahoe.”
She made her solo debut in 1957 with “I Wish You Love,” which was produced by the legendary Nelson Riddle, and it established Smith as solo star. She’d follow up with other popular recordings, such as “Swingin’ Pretty” and “The Intimate Keely Smith.”
Smith and Prima divorced in 1961 and she married Jimmy Bowen, who produced “The Intimate Keely Smith” album, in 1965. Her third marriage was to Bobby Milano, whom she married in the ’70s.
As her recording career flourished, Smith set up her own label — called Keely Records — which was partnered with friend Frank Sinatra’s Reprise Records.
Smith also appeared in such late 1950s films as “Hey Boy! Hey Girl!,” “Senior Prom” and “Thunder Road.”
Smith remained active in the music business into the 2000s. She received a Grammy nomination in the traditional pop vocal category for the 2001 album “Keely Sings Sinatra.” And in 2008, she performed a duet with Kid Rock during the 50th Grammy Awards on “That Old Black Magic.”
She earned raves for her run of dates at Feinstein’s nightclub in Manhattan in 2005. Of those shows, Variety said, “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.”
She was “very resolute in being in control of the trajectory of her career,” according to her publicist’s news release.
“Nobody will ever interfere with what I do on stage,” Smith once told Theatermania. “Someone might have an opinion of something but, if I disagree with it, I’ll go with my own thinking. I’m just a plain person. I sing like I talk — and, when I’m on stage, I talk just like I’m talking to you.”
Her final performance came on Feb. 13, 2011, at the Cerritos Performing Arts Center in Southern California.
Smith’s many awards and honors include being inducted into the Las Vegas Hall of Fame and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She also has a star on the Walk of Stars in Palm Springs, where she lived for the past 40 years.
Memorial services for Keely Smith are pending.
