Dorothy Jacqueline Keely, better known as Keely Smith, was an iconic American jazz and popular music singer, who performed and recorded extensively in the 1950s with then-husband Louis Prima, and throughout the 1960s as a solo artist. Smith married Prima in 1953. The couple were stars throughout the entertainment business, including stage, television, motion pictures, hit records, and cabaret acts. They won a Grammy in 1959, its inaugural year, for their smash hit, “That Old Black Magic,” which remained on the charts for 18 weeks.
Early years
Born in Norfolk, Virginia, Smith claimed Irish and Cherokee ancestry. Jesse Smith, her stepfather, was a carpenter, and her mother took in laundry to earn money to buy gowns for Smith to wear when she performed.
Career
When Smith was 11 years old, she sang regularly as a cast member of The Joe Brown Radio Gang program on a Norfolk station. At age 14, Smith sang with a naval air station band led by Saxie Dowell. At 15, she got her first paying job with the Earl Bennett band. She saw Louis Prima perform in New York City in 1949. They recorded together in 1949 and married on July 13, 1953. Their songs included Johnny Mercer's and Harold Arlen's "That Old Black Magic," which was a Top 20 hit in the US in 1958. At the 1st Annual Grammy Awards in 1959, Smith and Prima won the first Grammy for Best Performance by a Vocal Group or Chorus for "That Old Black Magic". Her deadpan act was popular with fans. The duo followed up with the minor successes "I've Got You Under My Skin" and "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen", a cover of the 1937 Andrews Sisters hit. Smith and Prima's act was a mainstay of the Las Vegas lounge scene for much of the 1950s. Though her actual voice was not used, she was caricatured as "Squealy Smith" in Bob Clampett's 1960 Beany and Cecil episode "So What and the Seven Whatnots", a Snow White spoof in a Vegas setting. Smith appeared with Prima in the movie Hey Boy! Hey Girl!, singing "Fever", and also appeared in and sang on the soundtrack of the previous year's film Thunder Road. Her song in Thunder Road was "Whippoorwill". She also appeared in the film Senior Prom. Her first big solo hit was "I Wish You Love" in 1957, and it brought her a Grammy award nomination for Best Vocal Performance, Female. Her debut album by that same title achieved gold status In 1961, Smith divorced Prima. She then signed with Reprise Records, where her musical director was Nelson Riddle. In 1965, she had Top 20 hits in the United Kingdom with an album of Beatles compositions, Keely Smith Sings The John Lennon—Paul McCartney Songbook, and a single, "You're Breaking My Heart", which reached No. 14 in April. She returned to singing in 1985, recording the album I'm in Love Again with Bud Shank and Bill Perkins. Her albums, Swing, Swing, Swing, Keely Sings Sinatra for which she received a Grammy nomination, and Keely Swings Basie-Style With Strings won critical and popular acclaim. In 2008 she performed a duet with Kid Rock during the 50th Grammy Awards on “That Old Black Magic.” Smith earned rave reviews for her performances at Feinstein’s nightclub in Manhattan in 2005. Said Variety: "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." According to a news release from her publicist issued upon her passing, Smith was "very resolute in being in control of the trajectory of her career."
“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.”
In 1986, Smith faced legal problems for failing to withhold employee personal income and disability insurance taxes in connection with vending companies she owned in Palm Springs, California.
Personal life
Smith married Louis Leo Prima July 13, 1953. in Virginia Beach; They had two children, Toni Elizabeth and Luanne Francis. The couple divorced in 1961. She married Jimmy Bowen in 1965. The couple divorced in 1969. In 1975 Smith married singer Bobby Milano in Palm Springs. Frank Sinatra gave the bride away. On December 16, 2017, Smith died of apparent heart failure in Palm Springs, California, at the age of 89. She is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Hollywood Hills.
Legacy
In 1998, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars was dedicated to her. She also has a star at 7080 Hollywood Boulevard in the Recording section of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It was dedicated on September 22, 1998. On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Keely Smith among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
