Name | Monica Lewis |
---|---|
Birth date | May 05, 1922 |
Birth place | Chicago, Illinois |
Occupation | Actress, singer |
Spouse | Jennings Lang (1956 - 1996) 3 children |
Monica Lewis (born May 5, 1922) is an American singer and actress.
Monica's course to classic song styling was set as a child. She was the youngest of three children born to musical parents: Her father, Leon, was a symphonic composer and pianist, and her mother, Jessica, sang with the Chicago Opera Company. After the Great Depression forced the Lewis clan to relocate from Chicago to New York City, there was no shortage of sibling rivalry: Monica's sister, Barbara, established herself as an accomplished concert pianist, while her brother, Marlo, co-created Ed Sullivan's landmark television show, Toast of the Town. The premiere broadcast, on June 20, 1948, featured Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, the team of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis and Monica.
Having studied voice with her mother since a mere toddler, Monica quit junior college at 17 to work as a radio vocalist. In the mid-1940s she had her own program on WMCA. This and other early airwaves successes led to her debut at Manhattan's legendary Stork Club and subsequent discovery by the "King of Swing," Benny Goodman, who signed her to appear with his popular band. She quickly ascended as a radio vocalist/cohost on programs including BEAT THE BAND, THE REVERE CAMERA HOUR and the CHESTERFIELD SHOW, sharing the microphone with Frank Sinatra. Monica became one of the country's highest-flying songbirds, working with record labels such as Signature Records, Decca, Jubilee Records, Capitol and Verve to create numerous timeless hits and classic albums.
Her TV appearances included Ed Sullivan's very first broadcast in 1948 and every major variety show opposite legends such as Bob Hope, Danny Thomas and the comedy duo of Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis, with whom she first appeared at New York's Copacabana.
Records and television led to movies, and in 1950 MGM signed Monica to an exclusive multimedia contract. She was groomed in true MGM style - given singing and romantic roles in such films as The Strip with Mickey Rooney, Inside Straight with Barry Sullivan and Excuse My Dust with Red Skelton. She also sang the title song in the Marge and Gower Champion musical Everything I Have Is Yours, in which she became the only woman other than Marge to ever dance on screen with Gower. Additional appearances followed in Affair with a Stranger, starring Victor Mature and Jean Simmons, and The D.I. (film) with Jack Webb.
Monica eagerly volunteered her talent for the war effort, becoming the darling of U.S. servicemen worldwide through the war bond drive, military radio broadcasts and a 1951 USO tour of South Korea with celebrated entertainer Danny Kaye. Back at home she delighted the masses as a chart-topping jukebox chanteuse and Burlington Mills hosiery's "Miss Leg-O-Genic." Glamorous gams aside, she was the advertising world's favorite face: Piels Beer, Camel Cigarettes, Pepsi-Cola and General Electric were among the many major companies which sold their products with Monica's visage. Her 14 years as the tuneful voice of the animated Chiquita Banana icon was as unforgettable as it was unprecedented.
From an insecure kid who could sing her heart out, and did, Monica matured into a woman of the world - eventually reducing her music career to begin Life II as Mrs. Jennings Lang. When she married this colorful and innovative MCA/Universal Studios production executive in 1956, she not only became his partner but the mother of his young children: Michael, a jazz pianist, and Robert, an attorney. Monica and Jennings had a third child together, Rocky Lang, now a noted Hollywood writer, director and producer.
Monica herself became a featured player in several of her husband's blockbuster Universal movies, including Charley Varrick, Rollercoaster, Airport '77, The Concorde ... Airport '79 and the Top 100 box-office hit Earthquake.
In the 1980s and 90's, Monica made a few choice cabaret appearances and recorded several new albums, among them "My Favorite Things," "Monica Lewis Swings Jule Styne" and "Why Did I Choose You?", a tribute to her 40-year marriage to Lang.
Lewis recently completed her photo-filled memoir, "Hollywood Through My Eyes," which is now available from Cable Publishing, co-written by Dean Lamanna.
Category:1922 births Category:American female singers Category:American film actors Category:American television actors Category:Living people Category:People from Chicago, Illinois Category:People from New York City Category:Traditional pop music singers
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
The World News (WN) Network, has created this privacy statement in order to demonstrate our firm commitment to user privacy. The following discloses our information gathering and dissemination practices for wn.com, as well as e-mail newsletters.
We do not collect personally identifiable information about you, except when you provide it to us. For example, if you submit an inquiry to us or sign up for our newsletter, you may be asked to provide certain information such as your contact details (name, e-mail address, mailing address, etc.).
When you submit your personally identifiable information through wn.com, you are giving your consent to the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information as set forth in this Privacy Policy. If you would prefer that we not collect any personally identifiable information from you, please do not provide us with any such information. We will not sell or rent your personally identifiable information to third parties without your consent, except as otherwise disclosed in this Privacy Policy.
Except as otherwise disclosed in this Privacy Policy, we will use the information you provide us only for the purpose of responding to your inquiry or in connection with the service for which you provided such information. We may forward your contact information and inquiry to our affiliates and other divisions of our company that we feel can best address your inquiry or provide you with the requested service. We may also use the information you provide in aggregate form for internal business purposes, such as generating statistics and developing marketing plans. We may share or transfer such non-personally identifiable information with or to our affiliates, licensees, agents and partners.
We may retain other companies and individuals to perform functions on our behalf. Such third parties may be provided with access to personally identifiable information needed to perform their functions, but may not use such information for any other purpose.
In addition, we may disclose any information, including personally identifiable information, we deem necessary, in our sole discretion, to comply with any applicable law, regulation, legal proceeding or governmental request.
We do not want you to receive unwanted e-mail from us. We try to make it easy to opt-out of any service you have asked to receive. If you sign-up to our e-mail newsletters we do not sell, exchange or give your e-mail address to a third party.
E-mail addresses are collected via the wn.com web site. Users have to physically opt-in to receive the wn.com newsletter and a verification e-mail is sent. wn.com is clearly and conspicuously named at the point of
collection.If you no longer wish to receive our newsletter and promotional communications, you may opt-out of receiving them by following the instructions included in each newsletter or communication or by e-mailing us at michaelw(at)wn.com
The security of your personal information is important to us. We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during registration and once we receive it. No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100 percent secure, however. Therefore, though we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.
If we decide to change our e-mail practices, we will post those changes to this privacy statement, the homepage, and other places we think appropriate so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.
If we make material changes to our e-mail practices, we will notify you here, by e-mail, and by means of a notice on our home page.
The advertising banners and other forms of advertising appearing on this Web site are sometimes delivered to you, on our behalf, by a third party. In the course of serving advertisements to this site, the third party may place or recognize a unique cookie on your browser. For more information on cookies, you can visit www.cookiecentral.com.
As we continue to develop our business, we might sell certain aspects of our entities or assets. In such transactions, user information, including personally identifiable information, generally is one of the transferred business assets, and by submitting your personal information on Wn.com you agree that your data may be transferred to such parties in these circumstances.