Frankie Laine dead at 93By Steve Gorman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Frankie Laine, the full-voiced singer who became one of the most popular entertainers of the 1950s with such hits as "I Believe," "Jezebel" and the theme to the TV Western "Rawhide," died on Tuesday at 93.
Laine, part of a generation of great Italian-American crooners whose peers included Frank Sinatra and Perry Como, died of a heart attack after hip-replacement surgery at the Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego, said his longtime producer, Jimmy Marino.
Laine had otherwise been in good health in recent years, and his last public performance was at the age of 92, singing the first big hit of his career, "That's My Desire," on a public television special, Marino told Reuters.
He tallied 21 gold records and dozens of songs on the singles charts in the United States and abroad, selling roughly 250 million albums.
Laine proved particularly popular in Britain, where his 1953 rendition of "I Believe" topped the charts for a record 18 weeks. Three decades later, a collection of his greatest hits, "The World of Frankie Laine, topped the British charts.
"He was huge abroad," Marino said. "He might have been bigger abroad than he was here, and he was huge here."
He is perhaps best remembered by a younger generation of American fans for his recordings of the theme to the hit television Western "Rawhide" and the theme to Mel Brooks' 1974 big-screen western spoof "Blazing Saddles."
Born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio to immigrant parents in Chicago's Little Italy neighborhood in 1913, Laine began singing as a choir boy and performed at a local ballroom before leaving home as a teenager during the Great Depression to try his luck as a marathon dancer.
According to his official biography, Laine and his partner ultimately set the all-time marathon dance record in Atlantic City, New Jersey, staying on their feet for a total of 3,501 hours over 145 consecutive days and shared a $1,000 prize.
Laine also worked as a dance instructor, singing waiter and nightclub performer before getting his big break in the mid-1940s, when Hoagy Carmichael heard him sing one of Carmichael's own compositions, "Rocking Chair."
That discovery led to a steady job at Billy Berg's jazz club in Hollywood and a recording contract with Mercury Records. His first studio session yielded a recording of the ballad "That's My Desire," which became a No. 4 hit on the American charts in 1947.
Two No. 1 hits followed the next year, "That Lucky Old Sun" and "Mule Train," and after a third chart-topper in 1950, "The Cry of the Wild Goose," Laine signed with Columbia Records.
It was there that Laine shifted toward more country & western songs and pop tunes, scoring a string of hits with "Jezebel," "Hey, Good Lookin'," "Jealousy," "High Noon" and "Tell Me a Story."
As his popularity faded at home following his last U.S. top-10 hit, 1957's "Love Is a Golden Ring," Laine turned to international cabaret circuit with performances that included an increasing number of inspirational and religious tunes. In the 1980s he had been mostly retired.
