Bow Wow & Ciara attend the 2005 VMAs
Keely Smith & Louis Prima perform “That Old Black Magic” - 1959
The singer Keely Smith, fourth wife of Louis Prima, passed away December 16th 2017 at the age of 89.
Smith had been singing since she was a young teenager, in 1947 she saw Prima perform in Atlantic City and was star struck by his larger than life stage presence. The next summer, again vacationing with her family at the shore, 20 year old Smith saw that Prima had announced he was auditioning for new singers at a local surf club.
A barefoot and bathing suited Smith was almost not allowed into the club to audition, but she borrowed a skirt, only to find her nerves getting the better of her:
“I started shaking,” she said on the website of the Concord Music Group, for whom she recorded in her later years. “I said, ‘No, no — I can’t do this.’ But he talked me into doing it. I sang ‘Embraceable You’ and ‘Sleepy-Time Gal,’ and he hired me on the spot.”
After five years touring together, Prima and Smith were married. He was nearly 20 years her senior and had been married and divorced three times. However their chemistry was undeniable and the were only becoming more famous for their unique stage dynamic. Smith had a beautiful torch song voice but also impeccable comedic timing, providing the perfect straight woman deadpan balance to Prima’s manic and outlandish energy. “Their act,” Will Friedwald wrote in The New York Sun in 2005, “was a brilliant juxtaposition of maximalism and minimalism.” With a simple eye roll or gentle mimicry of Prima’s antics she brought the audience in on the joke and created the kind of electric energy that surrounds a couple who are equally infatuated and exasperated with each other.
The couple had two children together and divorced after 8 years of marriage. Smith continued to have a solo singing career throughout the 1960s and is remembered as one of the great performers of her time.
(Source: The New York Times)
Although they were never a couple, Mark Hamill recently reminisced on his initial crush on his co-star and close friend Carrie Fisher. He commented that he was glad he was unaware of her affair at the time with the married Harrison Ford, because it would have caused jealousy.
“Carrie and I were attracted to one another, but I knew from previous jobs that it would have been a bad idea [to get involved with someone on set]. But Carrie and I found pretexts. I remember one time – I’m sure alcohol was involved – we were talking about kissing techniques. I said: ‘Well, I think I’m a fairly good kisser. I like to let the women come to me rather than be aggressive.’ And she said: ‘What do you mean?’ Well, next thing you know we’re making out like teenagers!”
Hamill also remarked on their subsequent decades long friendship and that he considered her a true sister: “Whenever I was on set, I would go straight to her trailer with my dog and hang out with her and her dog.”
(Source: theguardian.com)
Tate Donovan & Jennifer Aniston, at the premiere of Hercules, 1997. Donovan had provided the voice of the title character, Hercules.
The couple were engaged in the late 90s but were splitting up around the time Donovan was appearing on Friends as Aniston’s love interest. Shortly after their breakup Aniston began dating Brad Pitt.
Sandra Bullock & Tate Donovan, 1994.
The couple became engaged after meeting on the se of Love Potion No. 9 but never married.
Vivian Ayers Allen was an acclaimed American poet and mother of entertainers Phylicia Rashad and Debbie Allen. She appeared in Jet magazine in 1954 and 1956 concerning her split from husband Dr. Andrew A. Allen.
(Source: Flickr / vieilles_annonces)