Steve Lawrence, who, in the 1950s and ‘60s became a top stage, TV and nightclub act while partnered with his wife, Eydie Gorme, died Thursday.
Lawrence, 88, died of complications from Alzheimer’s disease, a spokesperson for his family said, according to The New York Times.
Lawrence, along with Gorme, stuck to pop standards throughout his career, keeping audiences coming back to relive the songs made popular when they were young.
“We had a chance to get in on the ground floor of rock ‘n’ roll,” Lawrence recalled in a 1989 interview. “It was 1957 and everything was changing, but I wanted to be Sinatra, not Rick Nelson.
“It didn’t attract me as much,” he told the website Classicbands.com. “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 Lorenzt Hart and Sammy Cahn and Julie Stein. Those people, I related to what they were writing because it was much more melodic. It as an intelligent lyric that was written. By and large these people were bright, educated or extremely gifted.”
While Lawrence had a successful career on his own, he was best known as part of the duo Steve & Eydie. At the height of his career, he appeared with his wife on talk shows and performed in nightclubs and Las Vegas, The Associated Press reported.
Longtime friend singer Dionne Warwick said in a statement that Lawrence was “resting with comfort in the arms of the Heavenly Father. My heartfelt condolences go out,” while comedian Carol Burnett said, “He was my very close friend. He will always be in my heart.”
Lawrence was born Sidney Liebowitz in Brooklyn, New York, the son of a Jewish cantor who worked as a house painter. Lawrence would sing in his father’s synagogue choir as a child, according to People.com.
He took his stage name from the first names of two nephews.
Lawrence began his professional singing career at age 15 after, on the third try, he won a week-long appearance on Arthur Godfrey’s daytime radio show.
King Records representatives heard Lawrence and signed the teen with a two-octave voice to a record contract.
Eventually, Lawrence became a frequent guest on comedian Steve Allen’s television show, then became a regular on the variety show. It was on the show that he met Gorme and the two married in 1957.
Lawrence had his first big hit in 1962 with the song “Go Away Little Girl,” written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, and had steady success through the ‘70s when he and Gorme were playing Las Vegas stages, nightclubs and, eventually, auditoriums.
Lawrence’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis ended his touring career in 2019, Variety reported. By that time, Lawrence had been a fixture in American music for more than 60 years.
Gorme died in 2013. The couple had two children, David, a composer, and Michael. Michael died of heart failure in 1986 at age 23.
“My dad was an inspiration to so many people,” his son David said in a statement. “But, to me, he was just this charming, handsome, hysterically funny guy who sang a lot. Sometimes alone and sometimes with his insanely talented wife. I am so lucky to have had him as a father and so proud to be his son.”
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