deaths

Screamin’ Scott Simon, who spent 52 years as the pianist of the energetic rock ’n’ roll and doo-wop group Sha Na Na, died Thursday in Ojai after a long battle with sinus cancer, his daughter Nina Simon announced. He was 75.
A member of Sha Na Na from 1970 until they quit touring in 2022, Simon sometimes played the piano with his feet as he belted out such hits as Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and Danny & the Juniors’ “At the Hop.”

Simon and Sha Na Na performed in the 1978 film adaptation of Grease as “Johnny Casino and the Gamblers,” playing six doo-wop numbers in the high school dance scenes.

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Meanwhile, Simon partnered with Louis St. Louis to write “Sandy,” sung by John Travolta. The film’s soundtrack went on to become one of the top albums of all time, with sales of more than 30 million copies.

With the 1977 premiere of The Sha Na Na Show, Simon moved to Los Angeles and appeared on all 97 episodes of the 30-minute syndicated variety program over four seasons. The band welcomed such guest stars as Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, James Brown and the Ramones.

And on tour, Sha Na Na performed with acts including John Lennon & Yoko Ono, Steve Martin, Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel.

Born on Dec. 9, 1948, in Kansas City, Missouri, Simon was a multisport athlete and active in United Synagogue Youth, a national community of Conservative Jewish teenagers. He played in jug bands, founded a jazz quartet, tried his hand at composing and did song parodies, like turning Van Morrison’s “Gloria” into “Toriah.”

He moved to New York City to attend Columbia University — where a classmate nicknamed him “Screamin’ Scott” — in 1966 and fronted a blues band called The Royal Pythons.

In 1970, he answered an ad in the Columbia newspaper about an opening for a piano player and guitarist in a campus doo-wop group. Sha Na Na had immediately preceded Jimi Hendrix onstage at Woodstock in 1969 yet was still relatively unknown. After Simon graduated, he came aboard as its keyboardist and eventual managing partner.

While Sha Na Na primarily played classic ’50s and ’60s songs, Simon composed multiple songs and solo albums performed by the band and by himself on records and on TV.

In addition to his daughter, survivors include his wife, Deborah; another daughter, Morgan; stepson Nick; and granddaughters Rocket and Naomi.

This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.

James Darren, the former teen idol and pop singer who played the dreamy surfer Moondoggie in three Gidget movies before starring on television on The Time Tunnel and T.J. Hooker, died Monday. He was 88.
Darren died in his sleep at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, his son Jim Moret, a correspondent for Inside Edition, told The Hollywood Reporter. He had entered the hospital for an aortic valve replacement but was deemed too weak to have the surgery; he went home but had to return.

“I always thought he would pull through,” Moret said, “because he was so cool. He was always cool.”

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Early in his career, the dark-haired Darren received excellent notices for starring in Let No Man Write My Epitaph (1960) — portraying the son of a hoodlum defended by Humphrey Bogart’s character in 1949’s Knock on Any Door — and for playing the Greek soldier Spyros Pappadimos in The Guns of Navarone (1961).

Even though he could not surf, the Philadelphia native got the role of Moondoggie (real name: Jerry Matthews) opposite three actresses as the precocious Malibu teen: Sandra Dee in Gidget (1959), Deborah Walley in Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961) and Cindy Carol in Gidget Goes to Rome (1963). 

Darren revived his singing career in the late ’90s when he appeared on several episodes of the syndicated series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as the holographic lounge singer Vic Fontaine, a role he called “one of the most enjoyable” he ever played.

Several of his Frank Sinatra-styled performances were recorded for the 1999 album This One’s From the Heart.

After many years out of the limelight, Darren made an impression as the husband of a bar owner in Harry Dean Stanton‘s final film, Lucky (2017).

James William Ercolani was born on June 8, 1936. Growing up on South 10th Street in South Philadelphia, he was inspired by another Philly native, Eddie Fisher, to become a singer and actor, and he commuted to New York to study acting with Stella Adler.

While in the city, the owner of a photography shop connected him to Columbia Pictures talent scout Joyce Selznick (David O. Selznick’s niece), and he went on to sign a contract with the studio.

Darren made his film debut as a high school senior and gang member opposite Robert Blake in the crime drama Rumble on the Docks (1956), then followed with roles in Operation Mad Ball, The Brothers Rico and The Tijuana Story in 1957 and Gunman’s Walk in ’58. 

The Gidget movies made him extremely popular with young ladies. 

“The defining moment was when I was at a studio in San Francisco and word got out that I was there,” he recalled in a 2015 interview with Los Angeles magazine. “Thousands of girls were screaming out front. When I had to leave the building, they tackled me to the ground and pulled pieces of my hair out. The police had to rescue me and took me to the roof until things settled down.”

To land the Gidget gig, Darren had to convince the producers that he could carry a tune. “They were going to use somebody else’s voice, but I told them I could sing,” he said. “We went into one of the soundstages with a piano player and I sang the song and they said, ‘He can do it.’ Then they put me on their label, Colpix.”

Darren also was heard performing in All the Young Men (1960), Diamond Head (1962), Under the Yum Yum Tree (1963) and For Those Who Think Young (1964).

He sang “Almost in Your Arms” at the 1959 Academy Awards and “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World” on the 1964 Oscar telecast; performed as Yogi Bear in a 1964 animated film; and did a number on a 1965 episode of The Flintstones.

He also played the best friend opposite Sal Mineo in The Gene Krupa Story (1959), starred as a car mechanic in The Lively Set (1964) and ventured to Italy to topline Venus in Furs (1969) with Barbara McNair.

Darren was married to childhood sweetheart Gloria Terlitsky from 1955 until their 1958 divorce and to Evy Norlund, a former Miss Denmark, from 1960 until his death. He lived for decades in a home on Kimridge Road in Beverly Ridge Estates that had been owned by Audrey Hepburn.

In addition to his wife and Moret, survivors include his other sons, Christian and Anthony; grandchildren Amanda, Carly, Matthew, Natalie and Nicholas; and goddaughter A.J. Lambert, daughter of Nancy Sinatra.

Over the years, Darren encountered many fans of his music, some of them unexpected.

“I was in a pizza shop one day with a friend of mine. I heard this motorcycle pull up, and in walked Bruce Springsteen in his little motorcycle cap, like Brando wore in The Wild One — I guess he left his helmet outside,” he recalled in his chat with Weaver. “I said, ‘Oh, I gotta go say hi to him.’

“I walked up to him and said, ‘Hi, I don’t want to interrupt you, but my name is James Darren. I just want to tell you I’m a big fan. I love all your stuff.’ And he said, ‘James Darren? I bought “Goodbye Cruel World” in Freehold, New Jersey.’ Isn’t that sweet?”

–Duane Byrge contributed to this report

This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.

Abdul Kareem “Duke” Fakir, the last of the original Four Tops and a stalwart of Motown’s golden age, has died at age 88.
Fakir’s family announced the singer’s death on Monday afternoon (July 22), noting that “our hearts are heavy as we mourn the loss of a trailblazer, icon and music legend who, through his 70-year music career, touched the lives of so many.”

Fakir, who co-founded The Four Tops in 1953, had been in poor health, most recently fighting bladder cancer, and had retired from touring late last year. He was, according to the family, “surrounded by his loved ones” at his home in the Detroit area. An associate told Billboard that on Sunday he was “happy, talking and interacting, and when they turned to do something and turned back around, he had slipped away.”

With his glasses and angular frame, Fakir was arguably the most recognizable of The Tops and maintained his leadership in the group following the deaths of Levi Stubbs in 2008, Renaldo “Obie” Benson in 2005 and Lawrence Payton in 1997 (his son Lawrence Payton Jr. is part of the current lineup).

“I am probably as surprised as you are at the longevity,” Fakir said during 2022 while promoting his memoir I’ll Be There: My Life With The Four Tops. “It’s unbelievable. I never would’ve thought that while I was in my 80s I’d even be thinking about doing this, let alone still doing it. I feel nothing but blessed, man. Just blessed.”

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Fakir was born in Detroit on Dec. 26, 1935; his father was a factory worker who’d come over from what is now Bangladesh. He played football, basketball and ran track in high school, meeting Stubbs through neighborhood football games; the two began singing after separately attending a variety show, eventually recruiting Payton and Benson to form the group, first called The Aims but later changed to avoid confusion with the Ames Brothers.

The Four Tops recorded without success for several labels — including Chess, Red Top, Riverside and Columbia — and supported Billy Eckstine before signing with Motown in 1963. The group started out recording standards for the label’s Workshop Jazz Records imprint, but when the songwriting/production team of Holland-Dozier Holland gave The Tops “Baby I Need Your Loving” in mid-1964, it hit No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100, which opened the floodgates for a string of hits that included “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch),” “Reach Out I’ll Be There,” “Standing in the Shadows of Love” and “It’s the Same Old Song.”

“We were so fortunate in a lot of things we did,” explained Fakir, who was engaged to The Supremes’ Mary Wilson during the mid-’60s but called it off due to their individual career demands. “The love we shared between the four of us was kind of rare for four really kind of street guys from the north of Detroit, to come together with that kind of love. But music does a lot of things to you. It created a lot of love that we had, especially between ourselves.

“I didn’t know how much I would love the audience and the people. Just being on stage changed my whole life and my perspective. I look at the world a whole different way than I did when I was a young guy. It’s a beautiful world, and it just needs a little push towards love and togetherness.”

The Tops had several stints with Motown, and away from that company it also had hits with “Ain’t No Woman (Like the One I’ve Got),” “Are You Man Enough” and “When She Was My Girl.” The Tops were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1990, the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998 and the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1999. Fakir accepted a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award on behalf of the band in 2009. “Reach Out I’ll Be There” was added to the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry in 2022.

“They’re just a tremendous group, one of the best,” Otis Williams of friendly “rivals” The Temptations said when the groups performed together a few years ago. “You look how long the original four stayed together like they did, and it’s so rare and special. I always marveled at it.” Like Fakir, Williams is the only remaining founding member of The Temptations, a role he said the two would speak about.

“These groups are our lives, you know?” Williams said. “I know Duke will be a Four Top until he can’t do it anymore. We both feel a responsibility to keep our [groups] going and keep the music out there for people to hear.”

In addition to the memoir, Fakir was also working on a stage musical based on The Four Tops’ story.

Fakir is survived by his wife, Piper; daughter Farrah Fakir Cook; sons Nazim Bashir Fakir, Abdul Kareem Fakir Jr., Myke Fakir, Anthony Fakir and Malik Robinson; 13 grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren. Funeral arrangements for Fakir are currently pending.

Michael Cuscuna, the three-time Grammy winner, Mosaic Records co-founder, historian and archivist who produced hundreds of jazz reissues and studio sessions during his career, has died. He was 75.
Cuscuna died Saturday of cancer at his home in Stamford, Connecticut, Grammy-winning recording artist Billy Vera, a longtime friend, announced.

Cuscuna produced the 1970 album Buddy & the Juniors, featuring Buddy Guy, Junior Wells and Junior Mance, for Vanguard Records, and 1972’s Give It Up, Bonnie Raitt’s lone gold album during her time at Warner Bros.

He produced reissues and studio sessions for Impulse, Atlantic, Arista, Muse, Elektra, Freedom, Novus and virtually the entire Blue Note catalog.

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“Plainly stated, Blue Note Records would not exist as it does today without the passion & dedication of Michael Cuscuna,” execs from the label wrote on Instagram.

Readers of Blues & Rhythm magazine know his work in the blues field, which included box sets on T-Bone Walker, Amos Milburn, Charles Brown and the Otis Spann/Lightnin’ Hopkins Candid sessions.

Nominated nine times in all, Cuscuna received his Grammys in 1993, 1999 and 2002, respectively, for producing box sets of music from Nat King Cole, Miles Davis and Billie Holiday.

Born on Sept. 20, 1948, in Stamford, Connecticut, Cuscuna played drums, saxophone and flute while working in a local record shop. He was drawn to R&B before jazz became his greatest love.

As a radio DJ, his theme song was the novelty tune “Rubber Biscuit” by The Chips, later covered by the Blues Brothers. When asked what was his favorite kind of music, he always answered, “Atlantic singles and Blue Note albums.”

He culled the Blue Note vaults for unissued treasures by such label masters as Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Dexter Gordon, Horace Silver, Art Blakey and Jimmy Smith as well as lesser-known performers including Quebec, Hank Mobley and Tina Brooks.

Also for Blue Note, he uncovered gems by Lester Young, Sonny Criss and Art Pepper, and his work on Michael Ruppli label discographies from company files was invaluable.

In later years, he gained ownership of Blue Note’s vast photographic library, licensing shots to books and films.

Without Mosaic — which he founded in 1982 with Charlie Lourie — the complete Roulette recordings of Count Basie, the complete Capitol Duke Ellington sessions and countless other gems might still be hidden away or lost forever, Vera noted.

Survivors include his wife, Lisa, children Max and Lauren and grandchildren Nicolas and Penelope.

“Michael and I were close friends for nearly 60 years,” Vera, who had a No. 1 song with “At This Moment” in 1987, said in a statement. “When back east, I stayed at his home, annoying Lisa, who put up with our often-sarcastic sense of humor. Our many lunches with [producer-discographer] Bob Porter were legendary for our obscurest dives into musical esoterica. The three of us adamantly refused to accept any dividing line between blues and jazz.

“In 1989, Blue Note chief Bruce Lundvall asked us to produce Lou Rawls. We gathered legends like Richard Tee, Cornell Dupree, Hank Crawford, David Newman, Benny Golson, Stanley Turrentine, George Benson, Ray Charles and Lionel Hampton, reviving Lou’s career with the No. 1 jazz album At Last, followed by two more that landed in the top five. It was the greatest fun we ever had.”

This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.

Jean-Paul Vignon, the romantic French vocalist and actor who impressed audiences on both sides of the Atlantic during an eight-decade career, died March 22 of liver cancer in Beverly Hills, his family announced. He was 89.
Performing a repertoire of contemporary pop and American standards, Vignon debuted in the U.S. in 1963 at the famed New York supper club The Blue Angel, where he opened for stand-up comic Woody Allen.

Ed Sullivan would soon showcase him on his Sunday night CBS variety show in eight appearances — including one in which he sang a duet with young Liza Minnelli — and he became a regular guest on Johnny Carson and Merv Griffin’s programs.

Signed to Columbia Records, Vignon released his first U.S. album, Because I Love You, in 1964. Three years later, he had a supporting role opposite William Holden and Cliff Robertson in the World War II film The Devil’s Brigade.

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In a 1994 profile in the Los Angeles Times, reporter Robert Koehler noted, “Vignon fulfilled the American image of the romantic, singing Frenchman. Ironically, rather than compare his voice to such renowned Gallic crooners as Maurice Chevalier and Gilbert Bécaud, Vignon says that he has a Bobby Darin kind of voice, able to sing fast and passionate or gentle and slow.”

He continued to play some of the top rooms in New York, Miami, Los Angeles and other major cities into the early 1970s, and in ’74 he recorded a single, “You,” with Farrah Fawcett, then a relatively unknown young actress and model.

Changing audience tastes stalled his career, but he did host a Canadian TV show produced by Dick Clark called The Sensuous Man, which ended each week with him reclining in a bathtub. And for a Playgirl centerfold in 1973, he sported a sweater once worn in a famous photo shoot by Marilyn Monroe and little else.

Born on Jan. 30, 1935, in the port city of Dire-Daou in the colonial territory of French Somaliland (later known as Djibouti), Vignon was schooled in Avignon, France. He briefly studied medicine in Marseille and law at the Sorbonne in Paris but decided to pursue music full time.

He was in his early 20s when, on the recommendation of Belgian singer-actor Jacques Brel, he secured a prestigious cabaret job in Paris that would launch his career.

The baritone debuted in front of the cameras as the star of the 1956 feature Les Promesses Dangereuses, then followed with a performance opposite Francoise Arnoul in the romantic drama Asphalte (1959).

Meanwhile, he had signed as a vocalist with France’s Disques Vogue, which aimed to develop him as an artist along the lines of such balladeers as Charles Trenet (his idol), Yves Montand and Charles Aznavour. His first album was 1957’s autobiographical Djibouti.

His career in France began to lag after he served 17 months of compulsory military service, but after opening for Edith Piaf and performing on board the French liner Liberté before such ocean-going celebrities as Ernie Kovacs, Edie Adams and Carol Burnett, he decided to try his luck in the States.

As he wrote in his 2018 memoir, From Ethiopia to Utopia, “My adventurous spirit was telling me, ‘Marco Polo did not hesitate to go to China, Henry Morton Stanley did not hesitate to presume exploring Central Africa and find Dr. Livingston, Christopher Columbus did not hesitate to sail west to discover America … so it is your turn to discover the United States.’”

After years of career ebbs and flows, he returned to the L.A. cabaret scene in 1993, encouraged by such pop vocalists as Harry Connick Jr., Michael Feinstein and Tony Bennett and the smash success of “Unforgettable,” which paired the late Nat King Cole and his daughter Natalie. He would remain active into his 80s with appearances at Feinstein’s at Vitello’s and the Catalina Jazz Club.

Along the way, he would also appear on such shows as The Rockford Files, Hotel, Falcon Crest, L.A. Law, Columbo, Days of Our Lives and Gilmore Girls; voice one of the Merry Men in Shrek (2001); and narrate the romantic comedy 500 Days of Summer (2009).

Meanwhile, his company, Côte d’Azur Productions, provided French audiences with translations and overdubs of Scarface and other American films.

Survivors include his longtime partner, Suzie Summers; daughters Marguerite Vignon Gaul (from his marriage to late American actress Brigid Bazlen) and Lucy Brank; and granddaughters Leah and Hannah.

This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.

Steve Lawrence, the charismatic Grammy- and Emmy-winning crooner who delighted audiences for decades in nightclubs, on concert stages and in film and television appearances, died Thursday (March 7). He was 88.

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Lawrence died in Los Angeles of complications from Alzheimer’s disease, publicist Susan DuBow announced. He partnered with the late Eydie Gormé, his wife of 55 years, in the very popular act Steve & Eydie.

With his boyish good looks, silky voice and breezy personality, Lawrence broke into show business when he won a talent competition on Arthur Godfrey’s CBS show and signed with King Records as a teenager. The singer chose to stay old school and resist the allure of rock ‘n’ roll.

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“It didn’t attract me as much,” Lawrence once said. “I grew up in a time period when music was written by Irving Berlin and Cole Porter and George and Ira Gershwin and Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein and Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart and Sammy Cahn and Julie Stein. Those people, I related to — what they were writing — because it was much more melodic.”

Lawrence’s smooth stylings were heard on dozens of solo albums, starting in 1953 with an eponymous LP. In 1963, he topped the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks with the Gerry Goffin-Carole King pop ballad “Go Away Little Girl.” The single became the first in history to reach No. 1 by two different artists, after Donny Osmond recorded his chart-topping version in 1971.

Lawrence also made the top 10 with 1959’s “Pretty Blue Eyes” (No. 9), 1960’s “Footsteps” (No. 7) and 1961’s “Portrait of My Love” (No. 9).

On Broadway, Lawrence starred as Sammy Glick in the long-running What Makes Sammy Run?, a musical adaptation of Budd Schulberg’s novel, and received a best actor Tony nomination in 1964. A year later, he hosted a short-lived CBS variety program, and in the 1970s, he was a semi-regular on The Carol Burnett Show, appearing on more than 2 dozen episodes.

Many will remember Lawrence for his portrayal of manager Maury Sline in The Blues Brothers (1980). When Jake (John Belushi) and Elwood (Dan Aykroyd) need to quickly raise money to save their childhood orphanage, they turn to Maury to book a gig. Lawrence utters one of the film’s most memorable lines when he hears how much they’re looking for. “Five-thousand dollars?” he sputters. “Who do you think you are, The Beatles?”

He reprised the character in the 1998 sequel Blues Brothers 2000.

Lawrence also played a pal of Steve Martin‘s greeting card writer in The Lonely Guy (1984); was Morty Fine, the father of Fran Drescher‘s character on CBS’ The Nanny; and guest-starred on other series including Night Gallery, Sanford and Son, Murder, She Wrote, Frasier, Hot in Cleveland and Two and a Half Men.

At the height of their popularity in the 1960s and ’70s, Lawrence and Gormé were one of show business’ hottest couples. If a variety show was on TV, it was only a matter of time before Steve & Eydie would be booked for it.

They won an Emmy in 1979 for their NBC special Steve & Eydie Celebrate Irving Berlin and had fun on game shows, appearing on What’s My Line?, I’ve Got a Secret and Password All-Stars, to name a few.

When they weren’t shining on the small screen, they were wowing fans in concert and at top nightclubs throughout the country. They were a staple in Las Vegas, headlining Caesars Palace, the Sands, the Sahara and the Desert Inn, and the Las Vegas Entertainment Awards honored them four times as Musical Variety Act of the Year.

In 1981, Lawrence realized a lifelong dream when he and his wife performed a series of sold-out concerts at Carnegie Hall.  

“They are both confident, full-throated singers who show the kind of assured stage presence that can come from years of playing to Las Vegas audiences,” John S. Wilson wrote in his review for The New York Times. “Mr. Lawrence, like so many singers who work in that milieu, uses singing mannerisms that owe a great deal to Frank Sinatra; Miss Gormé has a smoky voice with a powerful projection that enables her to belt out torch songs with a figure that brings such legendary singers as Sophie Tucker up to date.”

Steve Lawrence was born Sidney Liebowitz in Brooklyn on July 8, 1935. The son of a cantor, he grew up singing in synagogue choirs. Music was always a part of his life, but he didn’t know what direction it would take him until the day he listened to his first Frank Sinatra record.

“I must’ve been 15 years old when I heard him. I think I knew [then] what I wanted to do with the rest of my musical life,” he said. “His influence — not only on me, but everyone who came after him — was so indelible, so powerful.”

(Lawrence would hang around with Sinatra and the rest of the Rat Pack, and later, Steve & Eydie opened for Ol’ Blue Eyes on his Diamond Jubilee World Tour. For almost a year starting in 1990, they visited 13 countries for 41 sold-out performances that culminated with a concert at New York’s Madison Square Garden.)

Lawrence attended Thomas Jefferson High School, but books weren’t a priority. He would skip classes to spend his days in Manhattan at the Brill Building, hustling to make connections and pick up some cash singing demos. It was at the songwriting mecca that he first met Gormé; he was entering the building as singer Bob Manning, an acquaintance, was leaving with her. 

“Bob said, ‘I want you to meet Eydie Gormé,’” Lawrence recalled in a 2014 interview with the Los Angeles Times. “She had her hair in a ponytail, and her ponytail hit me in my face.”

In 1953, they met again when they were each booked to sing on the Steve Allen-hosted Tonight!, a forerunner of The Tonight Show. They started doing duets and two years later collaborated on their first single together: “(Close Your Eyes) Take a Deep Breath”/ “Besame Mucho.”

Lawrence and Gormé were wed at the El Rancho Vegas hotel in December 1957. A few months later, they filled in for Allen with a summer replacement variety series that ran for eight weeks on NBC.

After he spent two years in the U.S. Army, they released three albums in 1960, including Steve & Eydie We Got Us, which won them a Grammy for best performance by a vocal group.

In 1968, they headed to Broadway to star in the original musical Golden Rainbow, and that played for more than 380 performances. (Lawrence closed the first act by singing “I’ve Gotta Be Me,” later made popular by Sammy Davis Jr.)

Though they each enjoyed success as a solo act, audiences seemed to prefer Steve & Eydie together. And they did so until Gormé died of an undisclosed illness in August 2013. “Eydie has been my partner on stage and in life for more than 55 years,” Lawrence said then. “I fell in love with her the moment I saw her and even more the first time I heard her sing. While my personal loss is unimaginable, the world has lost one of the greatest pop vocalists of all time.”

A year after Gormé’s death, Lawrence released the solo album When You Come Back to Me Again. He had recorded it when she was ill and put it on hold when she died. When it came time to turn his attention back to music, Lawrence thought it only appropriate to dedicate the album to his wife and release it on Valentine’s Day.

“Eydie heard that album, and she thought it was terrific,” Lawrence said. “We were attached at the hip — Steve-and-Eydie. It was like we were one person, to be married that long.”

It was more than two years before Lawrence would return to the stage. On Valentine’s Day in 2016, he performed a selection of Sinatra tunes at the McCallum Theatre in Palm Desert.

Survivors include his son, David, a film and television composer whose credits include the High School Musical films; daughter-in-law Faye; granddaughter Mabel; and brother Bernie. Another son, Michael, died of heart failure in 1986 at age 23.

Donations in his memory can be made to Alzheimer’s Los Angeles here.

This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.