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">Eydie
Gormé
16, 1931
Bronx, New York, United
States
pop, big band, swing, traditional
pop
music
- present
Eydie Gormé (also spelled as Eydie Gorme[1];
born August 16, 1931) is an American singer and chanteuse,
specializing, with her husband, Steve Lawrence,
in traditional
pop
music, in the form of ballads and breezy swing. She has
earned
numerous awards, including the Grammy and the Emmy.
The couple are still active professionally (as
of 2009).
| Eydie Gormé | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Edith Gormezano |
| Born | August 16, 1931 |
| Origin | The Bronx, New York, United States |
| Genres | Latin pop, big band, swing, traditional pop music |
| Occupations | Singer, chanteuse |
| Years active | 1950 - present |
| Website | https://www.steveandeydie.com/ |
Eydie Gormé (also spelled as Eydie Gorme[1];
born August 16, 1931) is an American singer and chanteuse,
specializing, with her husband, Steve Lawrence,
in traditional
pop
music, in the form of ballads and breezy swing. She has
earned
numerous awards, including the Grammy and the Emmy.
The couple are still active professionally (as
of 2009).
Gormé was born as Edith Gormezano in The Bronx, New
York, the daughter of Fortuna and Nissim (or Nessim) Gormezano, a
tailor.[2] Her parents were Sephardic Jewish immigrants, her father
from Sicily and her mother from Turkey.[3][4] She graduated from William
Howard Taft
High School in 1946 (film director Stanley Kubrick attended the school at the same
time), and worked for the United Nations as
an interpreter, using her
fluency in the Ladino and Castellano languages.[citation
needed]
She made her recording debut in 1950 with the Tommy Tucker
Orchestra and Don Brown. She made
a second recording which featured Dick Noel. MGM issued these two
recordings on
78rpm vinyl
Gormé and Steve
Lawrence were married in Las Vegas on
December 29, 1957. They became
famous on stage for their banter, which usually involved tart yet
affectionate
and sometimes bawdy references to their married life, which remained a
feature
of their live act. In 1995 Gormé and Lawrence were honored for their
lifetime
contribution to music by the Songwriters
Hall of Fame.
Solo/duo
Gormé enjoyed a few hit singles on her own, none selling bigger than
1963's
"Blame it
on the Bossa Nova", which
was also her final foray into the Top 40 pop charts. It sold over one
million
copies, and was awarded a gold
disc.[5]In
the UK "Yes my Darling Daughter" reached No. 10. She won a Grammy
Award for Best
Female Vocal
Performance in 1967, for her version of "If He Walked Into My Life",
from
the musical Mame. The
latter made No. 5 on the Billboard
magazine Easy Listening
chart in 1966, despite failing to make the Billboard Hot
100. Indeed, most of Gormé's
singles chart success from 1963 onward was on the Easy Listening/Adult
Contemporary side, where she charted 27 singles (both solo and with her
husband)
from 1963 to 1979 (of which "If He Walked Into My Life" was the most
successful). As a soloist, her other biggest hits during that period
included
"What Did I Have That I Don't Have?" from On
a Clear Day You Can See
Forever (No. 17 Easy Listening, 1966) and "Tonight I'll Say a
Prayer"
(No. 45 Pop and No. 8 Easy Listening, 1969, also her last Hot 100 entry
as a
solo artist).
She gained crossover success in the Latin
music market through a series of albums she
made in Spanish with the famed Trio Los
Panchos. In 1964, the two acts joined
forces for a collection of Spanish-language standards called Amor.
"Sabor
a MÃ" became closely identified with Gormé and emerged as one of her
signature
tunes. The disc was later reissued as "Canta en Español". In 1965, a
sequel
appeared called More AmorLa Gormé (1976), a contemporary outing. The 1977 release Muy Amigos/Close
Friends, a duet collection with Puerto Rican singer Danny Rivera, also
received a Grammy
nomination. (later reissued as "Cuatro Vidas"). Her
last
album with Los Panchos was a 1966 Christmas collection, "Navidad Means
Christmas", later reissued as "Blanca Navidad". Gormé also recorded
other
Spanish albums in her career, including the Grammy-nominated
As a duo with her husband, the act was billed as Steve and
Eydie. In 1960, Steve and Eydie were
awarded the Grammy Award for Best
Performance
by a Vocal Group for the album, "We Got Us". Their biggest hit
single as a
duo, "I Want to Stay Here", was written by Gerry GoffinCarole
King and reached No. 28 in 1963. Under the
pseudonym Parker and Penny, Gormé and Lawrence achieved their
last chart
single (No. 46 on the Adult
Contemporary chart) with a
cover of the 1979 Eurovision
song contest winner,
"Hallelujah". The song most closely identified with the duo, the Steve
Allen composition "This
Could Be the Start of Something", never reached the charts, though it
remains a
staple in their live act. and
Eydie Gormé and Steve Lawrence have appeared on TV, including The Carol
Burnett Show and The Nanny.
She and Lawrence appeared
together on Broadway in the short-lived musical, Golden
Rainbow. Since the 1970s, the couple
has focused strictly on the American pop repertoire, recording several
albums
themed around individual American pop composers. As the 21st Century
arrived,
the couple announced their plans to cut back on their touring, launching
a "One
More For The Road" tour in 2002. In 2006, Gormé became a blogger, posting
occasional messages on her official
website.
In November 2009 Steve Lawrence embarked on a musical tour without
Eydie, who
stayed home for health reasons.